Dr. DeMarc Hickson currently serves as Executive Director at Us Helping Us, People Into Living, Inc. Prior to on boarding at Us Helping Us, DeMarc served as Associate Professor of Biostatistics (tenure track) in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the newly established School of Public Health at Jackson State University as well as Chief Operating Officer at My Brother’s Keeper, Inc. Importantly, Dr. Hickson was part of the team that opened Open Arms Healthcare Center, the first LGBT primary healthcare center in the state of Mississippi.
Dr. Hickson’s work includes community-based advocacy and environmental and policy systems changes that are effectively informed by a comprehensive program of health disparities and health equity research into the salient lifecourse, psychosocial and multilevel factors that impact cardiovascular disease, and its related risk factors, and HIV/AIDS among racial and sexual minorities, especially in the Deep American South. He currently serves as principal investigator (PI) of several federal and foundational funded programmatic, research studies and environmental and policy change initiatives that aim to understand the underlying determinants of health, improve the local food systems, and create a culture of health and wellness.
Dr. Hickson has published nearly 80 scientific manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, including the American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Epidemiology, and AIDS & Behavior, and serves on several Boards, including Advisory Boards for ViiV Healthcare and Gilead Sciences.
