Compassionate Science

Salim Bridges Research, Humanitarianism Among Refugee and Underserved Communities

In a world where turmoil and war continue to cloud the lives of many, University of Houston College of Pharmacy (UHCOP) Associate Professor Samina Salim, Ph.D., intends to bring rays of hope and healing to those innocents caught in the crossfire. Given her life-long goal of working on health within a neuro-socioecological context, she has now focused her research on understanding the biochemical consequences of stress in refugees and displaced communities.

Escaping War

The Syrian refugee crisis is one of the most pressing humanitarian challenges in recent years. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRA) since the civil war erupted in 2011, more than 14 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety. Many of the displaced fled to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq; yet some 20,000 Syrian refugees have also moved to the U.S. to escape the war.

Long interested in the intersection of neuroscience and pharmacology, Salim started her research with Syrian refugee families in the Houston area. Alongside UH Assistant Professor of Psychology Johanna Bick,Ph.D. Salim conducted the search to understand the impact of stress on their mental and physical health.

“It became a pressing scientific question for me to investigate,” Salim said. “Why is it that some refugees are more resilient, while others are more susceptible? What is the biochemical basis of this? Why are women more susceptible to mental stress than men?”

The researchers learned that women refugees suffer more from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the trauma of displacement, war, and separation, which resulted in women being highly susceptible to psychological disorders. They also noticed that barriers to health were significantly higher among Syrian refugee women, especially in terms of breast cancer.

Determined to learn more, Salim proposed to research and compare the impact of Houston-based Syrian refugees with refugees in the Middle East.

Next stop, Jordan

Jordan hosts the fifth largest refugee population per capita worldwide, with 651,000 Syrians living there. It is also home to the Za’atari Refugee Camp, the biggest Syrian refugee camp in the world, with over 80,000 refugees. In 2023, funded by a grant from the RAWABIT Foundation and as a Fulbright Specialist, Salim traveled to the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in the city of Irbid in northern Jordan to further her research.

In Jordan, Salim worked alongside Jordanian students under the guidance of JUST faculty members Omar Khabour, Ph.D. (‘05), a UH alumnus, and Fidaa Almomani, Ph.D. Students were trained in how to use psychometric measures of stress, and how to collect, write and tabulate data.

 “It was amazing, the students were very driven and interested in establishing a relationship with their local refugee community”, Salim said.  

Secondhand Trauma

Meeting with refugees in their communities and listening to their harrowing stories was not an easy task.

“The study is very impactful because it opened many new avenues of discovery for me,” Salim said. “Personally, it was an eye opener because for us war and conflict are just a news item.”

Salim said that she now feels like she is carrying a heavy load, only by hearing the narration of the refugees.

“On the plane coming back from meeting with the refugee population in Jordan, after hearing their stories, and seeing their facial expression, I realized I was carrying a burden,” Salim said.

Aid Avenues

Salim’s work has brought a lot of attention to the plight of the refugees’ mental health crisis. Her research continues, and now she is also looking at avenues for funding to provide mental health support to the refugees, both in Jordan and in Houston.

“In Houston, it may be easier to get them services, but for those in Jordan is complicated due to competing resources with the local Jordanians”, Salim said.

She is in communication with different organizations and agencies, such as the World Health Organization, to find ways of funding the support the refugees need.

“Even if the support is given to a few women, I will feel like I have accomplished something,” Salim said.

Science with Purpose

Salim’s work goes beyond looking for data. She has taken responsibility for her research, not only as a scientist but also as a caring, sympathetic person.

“I want to do purpose-driven research,” Salim said. “In other words, science with purpose. I just cannot collect my research data and forget about the human side of this”.

With a memorandum of understanding between UH and JUST signed in 2022, Salim and her collaborators are exploring opportunities for expanding their project to include an experiential component for Jordanian students to provide education on mental health and breast cancer while also collecting research data from the refugee communities.

“This way this will allow us to educate, empower, and create a societal transformation,” Salim said.

The Dream

Despite all the humanitarian and scientific work that Salim has accomplished, she still has bigger and more ambitious goals.

“My dream is for the University of Houston to establish an Institute of Refugee Studies in which we could work with refugees from all over the world,” Salim said.

Her dream is to use a team science approach to handle the problems of displaced communities and provide them with the tools for educational empowerment, such as career counseling and financial enrichment for example.

AligsCare

Salim’s dedication to serve marginalized communities goes beyond her research on the impact of stress on Syrian refugees.

Inspired by her husband’s battle with cancer, and an encounter with a woman at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, she founded a Texas 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing cancer patients with treatment and care called AligsCare.

Salim’s late husband and fellow UHCOP faculty member, Mohammad Asghar, was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in 2015. While her husband was undergoing treatment at MD Anderson, Salim met a woman from Mexico who was also queued to get chemo infusion. The woman said that she was able to get treatment in Houston because of charity work from a church, but that she didn’t know if she would be able to get more funds for the rest of her treatment.

“I was very moved by her story; We are so grateful that we take our healthcare for granted,” Salim said.

After hearing the woman’s story, Salim began to think about people in a similar situation back in her home country, India.

“It is very hard for cancer patients in India who are poor,” Salim said. “Imagine taking chemo and still having to pull a rickshaw or doing other hard physical labor to survive. Most of them can’t sustain the treatment.”

She started the nonprofit with $750 while her husband was still in treatment. After partnering with other academics and physicians from her alma mater Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), the organization started providing care, nutritional support, and home delivery of basic hygiene and sanitation supplies to underserved communities. AligsCare also provides free diagnostics, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, at AMU.

“Unfortunately, my husband lost his battle with cancer in 2019, but the work continues,” Salim said.

 The organization has now delivered care for more than 500 patients of underserved marginalized communities in India and has set up a palliative care unit at the university hospital at AMU. They have also raised around $200,000 to fund their work.

As founding president of AligsCare, Salim travels back to India every December to work and support the efforts of her non-profit organization. 

Unwavering Commitment

Her work on post-migratory living conditions, trauma susceptibility, and resiliency among displaced refugees; as well as with cancer patients in India is a testament to the transformative power of what she calls “science with purpose”.

“I just cannot collect data and forget about the human side; I'm determined to accomplish both,” she said.

By Elias Lilienfeld