Fadia Shebbo, a PhD student at the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) at the American University of Beirut (AUB), has been honored with the 2024 AAAM H. Clay Gabler Scholar's Award. Bestowed by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM), this award recognizes the best proposal on road safety, evaluated using the US NIH Simplified Review Framework. The award underscores innovative and impactful research addressing critical road safety issues.
For Fadia, this achievement is both personally and professionally significant, marking her first extramural research funding and advancing her doctoral research at FHS. A PhD candidate in Epidemiology, Fadia specializes in injury research, with a particular focus on road traffic safety in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. She is also a research trainee at the MENA Program for Advanced Injury Research (MENA PAIR), demonstrating a passion for interdisciplinary approaches that bridge public health, medicine, and biomechanics.
Fadia received the award for her study titled “Identifying Factors that Influence Decision to Use Child Passenger Safety Restraints in Lebanon: A Mixed-Methods Study." This study explores the knowledge and attitudes of expectant mothers in Lebanon regarding child passenger safety restraints (CPSRs), employing a mixed-methods approach. As the first research of its kind in the region, the study aims to provide evidence-based insights to inform safety interventions and reduce child road injuries. Its findings are expected to guide future research and collaborative studies addressing road traffic injuries in the MENA region.
Expressing her gratitude, Fadia shared, “Receiving the H. Clay Gabler Award fills me with immense gratitude. It validates my hard work and provides critical support for my research. I hope this milestone inspires others; it surely motivates me to continue growing and pushing boundaries in the field."
This well-deserved recognition reflects not only Fadia' s dedication to advancing road safety research but also the robust curriculum and exceptional mentorship she received at FHS, which provided her with the knowledge, skills, and guidance to develop a rigorous research study that earned her this prestigious award.