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. This background provides 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 community giving initiative launched in the spring of 2021. Among its many goals, the program aims to improve health outcomes for Latinx men living with and affected by HIV.

Jesus brings his training in understanding how social, political, and economic environments drive health outcomes and improve or worsen the ability for individuals to flourish. 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:

• ViiV Healthcare: Jesus oversees ViiV Healthcare’s Positive Action for Latinx Men initiative that underwrites HIV-related projects for 21 nonprofit organizations based throughout the U.S. He also supports a range of ViiV Healthcare’s Positive Action community giving initiatives including their work with young people, their focus on the U.S. South, and their placed based work.
• RIZE Foundation: Jesus co-led RIZE’s update to their “Your Rights in Recovery” toolkit ensuring people with or affected by opioid use disorder have up to date resources to help them navigate a broad sector of support.

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