March 4, 2022
The last four decades of turmoil in Afghanistan are responsible for one of the worst episodes of forced displacement in world history. Nearly six million Afghans have been forcibly displaced from their homes, leaving them at risk of poor health. Afghan Clinic is a public health initiative by and for Afghan refugees. In this talk, we discuss findings from interviews with Afghan refugee women and community organizers who serve them. We conclude with recommendations on serving Afghan refugee patients and mitigating their barriers to health and healthcare.
Nazineen Kandahari, MS is a student in the UCSF Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved. As an Afghan refugee, Nazineen intimately experienced how the healthcare institution in the United States was not built to serve certain people. Thus from a young age, she committed herself to promoting people’s agency. Through community service, research, and public health intervention work, Nazineen has established herself as a trusted leader within the refugee community. She is passionate about health equity and community engagement. Nazineen is currently the Principal Investigator of a community-based health intervention for forcibly displaced Afghan immigrant women. She completed her Master of Science at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health on a study exploring the sexual health needs of Arab immigrant youth. Nazineen was named a “Student Who Rocked Public Health in 2021” by the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice and is a UC Berkeley School of Law Human Rights Center Fellow and Albert Schweitzer Fellow.
Nilufar Kayhani is an undergraduate student studying Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Nilufar is the child of Afghan refugees and is committed to resolving health inequities, particularly those experienced by refugees. She has initiated multiple community-based participatory research projects with historically marginalized populations while at UC Berkeley. She is currently a research intern at the Srivastava Lab at the Gladstone Institutes at the University of California, San Francisco. Nilufar is a pre-medicine student passionate about public health.
