Benissa E. Salem, PhD, RN, MSN, PHN, CNL - Panelist

Dr. Benissa Salem is an Assistant Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Nursing and has had a commitment, passion and drive to reduce health disparities among homeless populations.  As an early stage investigator and nurse researcher, she has developed and published a theoretical framework which guided an understanding of correlates of frailty among Los Angeles-based, middle-aged and older homeless adults.  She has utilized qualitative methods to understand the experience of prefrail and frail, middle-aged and older homeless women (MAO-HW), and perspectives of homeless service providers working with homeless women to design culturally-sensitive interventions among this under-resourced population using community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods.  She has also pilot tested a two-arm, randomized controlled trial (RCT) which compared the effectiveness of a Frailty Intervention versus a Health Promotion program among prefrail and frail, MAO-HW.  Most recently, she formed a community advisory board, inclusive of community and academic stakeholders, and obtained preliminary feasibility and acceptability of a trauma-informed, health promotion program for prefrail or frail, MAO-HW.  She has also served as a Co-Investigator (Co-I) on several NIH-funded, CBPR-informed, RCT studies delivered by a nurse/community health worker dyad to 1) reduce drug use and recidivism among formerly incarcerated, homeless women exiting California jails and prisons and 2) improve medication adherence for homeless populations with latent tuberculosis infection.  She previously completed a National Institute of Nursing Research T32 health disparities pre-and-post doctoral fellowship and is a recipient of several awards (e.g., UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship award, UCLA School of Nursing Dissertation award, and UCLA Emerging Leader Award).  She holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Studies from the University of Southern California, Master of Science in Nursing from UCLA and Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing Science from UCLA.