At Whitman-Walker, we strive to treat each patient with the dignity, affirmation, and respect they deserve. Our mission is to be the highest quality, culturally competent federally qualified health center serving the greater Washington community, including individuals who face barriers to accessing care, and with expertise in LGBTQ and HIV care. We offer comprehensive health and wellness services including, primary and specialty infectious disease care; behavioral, community, and sexual health; dental, legal, and complementary wellness services; substance abuse treatment, youth prevention services, and more.

Job Summary

The Research Engagement Specialist provides outreach and education individually, in group sessions and in community forums (including but not limited to talks, fairs, festivals, parades, nightclubs). The Research Engagement Specialist educates the community about ongoing Whitman-Walker research studies and helps recruit and retain participants for those studies. These studies may be related to HIV prevention/treatment/cure/vaccination, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), sexually transmitted infections (STIs), transgender health care, or other topics. The Research Engagement Specialist will provide specific outreach to priority populations as dictated by research needs.

Primary Essential Duties

• Demonstrates impeccable customer service skills, showing respect for diversity and an embrace of WWH’s core values.

• Plans, develops, and implements materials and events to promote health education, including preparation, facilitation, and follow-up.

• Conducts community outreach and provide community education covering Whitman-Walker services and focusing specifically on Research.

• Provides individual and group education on what research is and how research benefits health.

• Helps develop, identify, implement and improve participant education materials and other tools that promote and encourage participation in research studies.

• Maintains current knowledge base on specific health issues.

• Collaborates with other Health Education teams at Whitman-Walker to plan and carry out various health projects aimed at health promotion and recruitment of clients and/or participants. 

• Provides HIV, STI, and general sexual health and wellness related information using age-appropriate, culturally sensitive, agency approved materials/models and approaches.

• Coordinates logistics of initial study enrollment appointments for all individuals who have been screened and qualify for a research study.

• Responds to calls/emails from the research department telephone line and email in a timely manner.

• Assists with the maintenance of educational materials, incentive items, and other physical inventory.

• Provides generalized information about WWH services to include medical, behavioral health, dental, aesthetics, occupational therapy, CTRS, PEP, and Rapid services, appointment reminders, closings, patient portal, no show policy, financial obligations, public benefits/insurance navigation, and other services as appropriate available to both new registrants and existing patients.

• Follows up with participants to ensure retention in studies and engages in retention activities with participants.

• Identifies barriers to individual participants’ research retention and communicates with participants’ study team.

• Collects data and documents all work activities according to established standards, for production of weekly, monthly and annual reports and assists with the creation of those reports as necessary.

• Protects patients’ rights by maintaining the confidentiality of personal and financial information.

• Reviews charts and provides comments from data pulls and contacts patients to identify interest in potential studies.

• Responsibilities include other duties as assigned, including special tasks involved in responding to an emergency event.