The EIP is the department’s platform for experiential education, clinical research, and clinical practice/operations in population health and health promotion. The size and maturity of the EIP means that infrastructure is in place to directly accommodate or rapidly develop any population health priority for which there is funding and/or interest. Total funding for EIP services over the past two decades exceeds $20 million with hundreds of thousands of individuals served by various component programs.

As the EIP has grown over time, it has expanded from ED-based infectious disease screening to include a broad array of interventions targeted at a variety of social determinants of health. A natural outgrowth of this process was expansion into the space of substance use disorder screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment and/or other social service resources (I.e., the SBIRT model). Our EIP now works collaboratively with a dedicated substance use disorder (SUD) team. 

• Primary disease foci have grown to include HIV, Hepatitis C, substance use and mental health disorders, along with the tremendous breadth of social determinants of health (e.g., housing, job assistance, social networks, food insecurity, sex-work and violence). 

• Emerging focus areas include resource utilization, primary care coordination, diabetes, hypertension, tuberculosis, influenza, sexually transmitted infections, victims of human trafficking, and most recently a massive effort in community-wide COVID-19 response.

Currently the EIP involves approximately four faculty members, program coordinators, and a variable number of core service staff. The EIP integrates a separate workforce of adjunct health professionals (e.g., health promotion advocates, linkage coordinators, addiction counselors, peer-support specialists) into the ED and expands services provided by usual ED staff (e.g., nurses, physicians/advanced practice providers, social workers). All EIP staff are highly trained in principles of cultural competence, health equity, and evidence-based counseling techniques. 

Staff 

EIP Clinical Program Manager – Ryane Sickles, CHES
Peer & Linkage Project Manager – Jessika Bass, MSW, LSW
HPA Project Manager – Elysia M. Smith
CICIP Program Manager – Lindsey Molloy
ASD Linkage Lead – Chloe Striker, CDCA
Linkage Lead – Rachel Kombo, MPH
Data Manager – Robert Braun, MPH
Business Manager – Frank Burdsall, MBA 

Linkage Coordinators 

Neria Brempong
Noah McGorry
Joseph Fiorelli
Alaa Salameh
Alyson Ellery 

Peers Support Specialists 

Lauren Duba, CDCA
Samantha Fouch
Kathy Legg 

Health Promotion Advocates (HPAs) & HIV Testing Counselors 

University of Cincinnati Students/Interns