Join the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy and the Duke Center for Global Mental Health for a research talk with Mariia Savchnya, who will share findings from the STRONG Study (Stress, Trauma, Resilience Of New Generations) examining stress, trauma, and resilience among Ukrainian refugee women in Poland.
Mariia and her team followed 141 Ukrainian refugee women— mothers and grandmothers who arrived in Kraków after February 2022 to examine hair cortisol concentration as a biomarker of HPA-axis activity alongside self-reported perceived stress and psychological resilience.
The study found that women who fled frontline regions had 18% higher hair cortisol levels than women from non-frontline regions, despite reporting similar levels of perceived stress. Notably, the difference in cortisol levels varied by resilience: the gap was largest among women with lower resilience and disappeared among those with higher resilience.
Mariia will use these findings to discuss what biomarkers can add to refugee health research, as well as future directions of her work, including additional biomarkers, health systems research on Ukrainian refugees in Poland, and a developing One Health project.
The session will also include time for discussion and feedback on how we measure stress among war-affected families and what these measures may mean for how families affected by war are supported.
About the Speaker
Mariia Savchnya completed her medical education at Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv, Ukraine, before moving to Poland to pursue a PhD in Health Sciences at Jagiellonian University Medical College. Her research focuses on refugee health, with particular interests in biomarkers such as cortisol and telomere length. She is also a research assistant on a project examining health systems barriers and facilitators to emergency department use among Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
Research Projects:
- STRONG Study: Stress, Trauma, Resilience Of New Generations — PI: Grażyna Jasienska
- EDuREF Study: Investigating the barriers and facilitators to emergency department use among refugees from Ukraine in Poland — PI: Iwona Bielska
Join us for an engaging conversation on biomarkers, resilience, refugee health, and the health impacts of war.