Jesus A. Barrios

Deploying public health strategies to empower Latinx communities

“I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.’”—Toni Morrison 

Over the past decade, Jesus’s professional life has revolved entirely around the complex, multifaceted intersection of LGBTQ issues and immigration enforcement.

Before joining TCC Group, Jesus was an administrator at the influential Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City, where he oversaw a team that focused on sexual health services and biomedical interventions available to LGBTQ communities living in New York City.

Jesus’ training and background possesses an immensely valuable perspective into the ongoing healthcare and social challenges facing the Latinx community and the actions needed to solve them. At TCC Group, Jesus is project leader for ViiV Healthcare’s Positive Action for Latinx Men, a new, three-year initiative launched in the spring of 2021. Among its many goals, the program aims to enhance community commitment to support Latinx men living with and affected by HIV and its burden on communities.

One of Jesus’s major professional desires is to shift the public narrative of human suffering. He believes that in the face of social injustice, the communities most threatened and vulnerable will continue to find portals and new worlds in which to thrive and survive.

At TCC Group:

• Positive Action for Latinx Men: Jesus oversees this ViiV Healthcare initiative that underwrites HIV-related projects for 19 nonprofit organizations based throughout the U.S. He helped oversee and assess the initial group of grantees and continues to liaise with representatives on new and/or existing programs designed for Latinx men living with or affected by HIV. He checks in with them for updates, discusses challenges and logistics, and troubleshoots any problems that arise.

Before TCC Group:

• Callen-Lorde Community Health Center: As an administrator in the care coordination department of this New York-based, nonprofit LGBTQ healthcare organization, Jesus was responsible for planning, implementing, and evaluating social services for all three of its locations. Many of the sexual health services he supervised were at the forefront of new biomedical interventions that were introduced into the community.

Education:

• SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, New York
  • DrPH Student, Community Health and Social Sciences
• CUNY School of Public Health, New York
  • MPH, Community Health and Social Sciences
• California State University, San Bernardino
  • BS, Public Health