HIV/HCV Evaluation Specialist
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
My name is Jelani Cheek, MPH, and I currently worked at the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene's Research and Evaluation Unit as a HIV/HCV Evaluation Specialist. I'm originally from Atlanta, Georgia, where I received my B.S in Microbiology from the University of Georgia and MPH in Epidemiology from Emory University. After graduating from Emory in 2018, I moved to New York City for my first full-time posittion as an Ending the Epidemic (EtE) Specialist.
In my first role as an EtE Specialist, I served as a data analyst assigned to agencies and programs receiving city-funded EtE contracts. The primary function of my role was to evaluate service usage among agencies and clients to provide an accurate picture of how services are affecting client's health outcomes, primarly PrEP and PEP uptake. My work would provide evidence-based suggestions for quality improvement measures aimed at increasing desired outcomes. These outcomes were also geared towards health equity, ensuring that not only services are being utilized, but utilized in an equitable manner, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or an almagamation of all aforementioned characteristics.
My passion for heatlh equity has been carried over into my second and current position as the HIV/HCV Specialist within the same unit. In this role, I collaborate with the Viral Hepatitis Program to examine and estimate HIV and HCV outcomes among NYC residents coinfected for both. The current absract being presented came about by examining unexplored issues among coinfected individuals of NYC through a health equity lens. I am excited to share with particpants of IDWeek 2023 the outcomes of my research examining active HCV infection and HCV cure among Ryan White Part A clients, specifically, clients who belong to priority populations due to previously observed inequities.