Houston Department of Health and Human Services
Bureau of HIV/STD and Viral Hepatitis Prevention
8000 N. Stadium Drive
5th Floor
Houston,
TX
USA
77054
Email:
lupita.thornton@cityofhouston.net
Biographical Sketch:
Thornton has 20 years of employment with the Houston Health and Human Services in both HIV/STD Prevention and Surveillance. She started her employment as a disease intervention specialist (DIS). She moved on to be a frontline supervisor at several STD clinics providing supervision to DIS. After several years of being a frontline supervisor, she was promoted to be the counseling and testing coordinator for HIV/STD prevention. At that time Thornton collaborated with City of Houston and Texas Department of Health–funded community based organizations to provide counseling and testing for HIV and other STDs for Houston Harris County.
Thornton under the direction of the Bureau of Epidemiology was responsible for all STD surveillance activities as the STD surveillance supervisor. Her duties also included the oversight of HIV public Health follow-up. Thornton collaborated on two research studies while in STD surveillance; 1. A retrospective study of the serologic response to syphilis therapy in patients with and without human immunodeficiency virus infection with Baylor College of Medicine, 2. Analysis of Treponema pallidum antigen study with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
She is currently the Public Health Investigator Manager for the Houston STD program where she oversees the programmatic issues surrounding the DIS activities.