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needed reassurance that the information was nal evaluations suggested that it did. NATURE’S STRATEGIES
purely for research, she says. Dajani and Panter-Brick suspect that’s be-
Before and immediately after the interven- cause the intervention lasted just 8 weeks
tion, and again 11 months later, the teenag- and largely targeted one source of resilience—
ers also answered surveys about their mental individual strengths. “You could go to a great
health and sense of security. “To what extent program every day, but if you go home and
do you fear for your family in your daily your family life is terrible, you’re not going
life?” one question asked. “To what extent do to build resilience,” Dajani says. The surveys
you fear or worry about losing your family’s support that conclusion: Teens who scored
source of income?” read another. high on the resilience measure from the start
To lighten the mood, one of Dajani’s re- described close family ties and supportive
search assistants—a Syrian refugee herself— communities, Panter-Brick says.
volunteered to paint the girls’ nails before Resilience “isn’t simply in the child, but
interviews. But those nail painting sessions embedded in their family, caregivers, and
often ended in tears. Both the fieldworkers community,” agrees Masten, who has noticed
and the teenagers came to dread the ques- that same trend among children in Min-
tionnaires because talking about past trau- nesota and elsewhere. That doesn’t mean
mas was so upsetting, Dajani says. Nubader didn’t benefit the teenagers in
Stealing genes
In response to the teens’ and fieldworkers’ Jordan, Panter-Brick says. But ideally, she
requests, “we decided to ask the teenagers says, interventions should be more sweep-
how they deal with negativity, not just remind ing, reaching parents and communities, too. to survive
them of it,” Dajani says. The team crafted an Mercy Corps is now doing just that through magine a raging infection in the
Arabic translation of a survey called the Child a support program for parents and caregivers lungs of a hospitalized cancer
and Youth Resilience Measure, originally de- that teaches them about the impacts of long- patient. When a powerful antibiotic Downloaded from
veloped by Canadian psychologist Michael term stress on the brain, Shahed says. floods the patient’s system, the
Ungar. It queried the teens about sources of Dajani and Panter-Brick’s experiment was I bacterium responsible, Klebsiella
resilience in their own lives by asking them “important, even groundbreaking,” Pine says. pneumoniae (pictured above), seems
to rate 12 statements such as “I am aware of The experiment wasn’t perfect, in part because to be doomed. But it can deploy a
my own strengths,” and “My family stands by the control group was just a waitlist. Com- resilience strategy honed over billions
me in difficult times,” gauging their feelings paring it with a slightly different program— of years: borrowing a gene from an-
of belonging and optimism. for example, recreation with no educational other cell that enables the pathogen
In the end, the scientists determined that content—would have helped the researchers to survive. http://science.sciencemag.org/
Nubader had a positive impact—but whether identify the active ingredient of Nubader’s When environments change, organ-
it nurtured resilience depends on whom you success. Still, Pine says, the team showed that isms adapt or die. K. pneumoniae and
ask. The teenagers enrolled in Nubader felt rigorously testing humanitarian programs other bacteria have turbocharged the
moderately safer and more secure than mem- under trying circumstances is possible. process of adaptation by snagging
bers of the waitlisted control group—a benefit Other NGOs are now applying science to genes from elsewhere, including vari-
sustained 11 months later, the team reported their resilience interventions. In Lebanon, ous bacteria and DNA molecules loose
in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psy- War Child Holland, a branch of the global in the environment. Such horizontal
chiatry in October 2017. Findings from the NGO that assists children in conflict zones, gene transfers allow the bugs to gain on March 1, 2018
hair strands, too, suggested a benefit: Aver- is evaluating three efforts: a life skills pro- valuable new traits, everything from
age cortisol levels in the intervention group gram, a program to reduce parents’ stress, the ability to thrive on cheese rinds to
dropped by a third, the researchers reported and a World Health Organization–designed antibiotic resistance.
in January in Psychoneuroendocrinology. In mental health intervention for Syrian refu- Researchers think that K. pneu-
a subgroup with statistically low levels of gees. War Child Holland’s ultimate goal is to moniae acquired its antibiotic dis-
cortisol—a phenomenon linked to higher risk find the best way to support resilience at the rupter gene, blaKPC, from another,
of PTSD—cortisol production increased by individual, family, and community levels all still-unidentified bacterium.
nearly 60%, a healthy sign. at once, says psychologist Mark Jordans, War Bacteria outfitted with the gene
Those changes aren’t dramatic. But partici- Child Holland’s director of research and de- churn out an enzyme that breaks
pating in the program was clearly better than velopment in Amsterdam. down several antibiotics.
nothing, says Danny Pine, a child psychiatrist For Panter-Brick, one of the most valuable As with many resilience strategies
at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in lessons out of Jordan came from the young in nature, stealing genes has its costs.
Bethesda, Maryland. people themselves. They reminded her that Sometimes microbes incorporate
Mercy Corps interpreted the findings as resilience research “is not about rescuing harmful genes instead of helpful
a win. “Now we can confidently say that our victims of chaos,” she says. Rather, it calls for ones. And much like a new player on a
work does make a difference,” says Noura identifying potential sources of strength that basketball team, the protein produced
Shahed, a project coordinator at Mercy young people can draw on to survive, even from an acquired gene may not mesh
Corps in Amman. But Dajani and Panter-
thrive. “It’s about reshaping your lens on the
PHOTO: SPL/SCIENCE SOURCE Brick say the reality is more nuanced: Al- world,” she says, “to what people feel respects fortunately for patients, K. pneumoni-
with the cell’s other proteins. But un-
though teens had less fear and stress, the
their dignity.” j
ae’s strategy works all too well: Those
strict
study
scientists’
not meet the
did

bugs kill between 40% and 70% of the
Reporting for this project was supported by
program
of
definition
resilience,
the
and
people they infect. —Mitch Leslie
did not appear to strengthen teens’ social
a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental
support, even though Mercy Corps’s inter-
SCIENCE sciencemag.org Health Journalism. 2 MARCH 2018 • VOL 359 ISSUE 6379 979
Published by AAAS
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