Meet Jeralyn Cortez-Weir: Helping the Health of NYCHA Residents
Jeralyn Cortez-Weir is a dedicated public health advocate with a wealth of experience in community engagement and health equity initiatives. Since joining the Authority in 2022, she has been instrumental in expanding resident health initiative programming, forging partnerships with external health partners, and creating pathways for NYCHA residents into preventive health careers.
Ms. Cortez-Weir is the Health Care Partnership Manager in NYCHA’s Resident Health Initiatives, where she oversees the development and implementation of initiatives aimed at bringing partner-led health resources to NYCHA developments while also building capacity for residents to lead preventive health efforts. One of the biggest projects she manages is the NYCHA Health Corps partnership with NYC Service. The program provides NYCHA residents with skills in public health through AmeriCorps service. She helps recruit residents to join the program and City agencies and community-based organizations to serve as host sites; she also supervises residents once they have been accepted into the program. In addition, she manages relationships with a network of partners who operate place-based community health worker initiatives across nearly 60 developments.
“My favorite part of my job is when I’m able to make a connection and when I can see how there’s an opportunity to partner,” Ms. Cortez-Weir said. “I love seeing the project through the initial idea and working with a partner to see it all come together.”
Ms. Cortez-Weir previously worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering for close to 24 years, where she served in various roles focused on community outreach and research to address health disparities related to cancer. She also has a master’s degree in public health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Her extensive experience in community health led her to play a crucial role managing a community engagement team as part of NYC’s Test & Trace Corps during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she was on the ground providing support in person and via telephone and conducting contact tracing at rapid COVID testing sites in Cypress Hills and East New York, Brooklyn.
Working as a first responder during a global pandemic was a unique and powerful experience: “The city and the world got to learn about what many of us who’ve worked in the community health field know – that there are so many other things besides access that play into quality of life and well-being, from food and being connected to the internet to having insurance and understanding how it works. The COVID pandemic shined a light on health inequities.”
After the COVID contact tracing program ended, Ms. Cortez-Weir decided she wanted to continue working in the space of social determinants of health, which led to her current role at NYCHA.
Her role at NYCHA was newly created when she began and, almost two years later, she is proud of what she’s been able to accomplish. “One of my proudest moments within my first year was the end-of-service ceremony for the NYCHA Health Corps,” Ms. Cortez-Weir said. “To start my role during the first cohort and get to the graduation was to be able to see the fruits of all my labor, and it was rewarding.”
Another proud moment was the opportunity to speak about her work at NYCHA as part of a panel on housing-based community health worker (CHW) initiatives at a CHW Innovations Summit hosted by NYU earlier this year.
Looking ahead, she is excited to expand and scale health programming to benefit more NYCHA communities, such as by establishing health clinics in vacant NYCHA spaces. With her passion for connecting communities to resources and addressing health inequities, Ms. Cortez-Weir is helping to create healthier futures for NYCHA residents.
“Jeralyn brings to her work a patient tenacity, creativity, and caring that invites others to want to collaborate with her in service to NYCHA residents,” Director of Health Initiatives Andrea Mata said. “Our department, and NYCHA as a whole, is stronger because of her. Keep an eye out for the work of Jeralyn and her growing team; from chronic disease prevention to vision health and beyond, there’s lots more in store for Health Care Partnerships and the external investment it attracts across NYCHA.”
Featured photo caption: Ms. Cortez-Weir (middle) at the 2024 NYCHA Health Corps end of service celebration.
