September 30, 2021
The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
New York State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
Dear Governor Hochul,
As members of the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EtE) Community Coalition,[1] we write to urge you to consider new leadership for the New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS), and to offer our strong support for your consideration of Chinazo Cunningham, MD, MS, as OASAS Commissioner.
We applaud your demonstrated leadership and commitment in efforts to increase access to substance use disorder services and end overdose deaths, and we look forward to working with you to improve drug user health. As you are aware, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has dramatically undermined our progress toward these goals, exacerbating drug-related harm, including opioid poisoning and overdose deaths. The disruption to daily life during the COVID-19 crisis has hit people who use drugs hard, increasing isolation and despair and disconnecting people from healthcare, supportive services and community. Overdose deaths have risen tragically across the U.S. as a result, including an increase of at least 29.5% in the number of overdose deaths in NYS between 2019 and 2020.[2] Some communities are affected more deeply by drug-related harm that others, reflecting the same racial disparities that characterize the impact of COVID-19 and other health crises. Even before the pandemic, a National Institutes of Health initiative examined racial disparities in opioid overdose deaths, finding a significantly increasing trend in deaths among non-Hispanic Blacks nationwide, when compared to non-Hispanic Whites, including in NYS, where overdose deaths among White New Yorkers declined 18% from 2018 to 2019, compared to no change in the rate of overdose deaths among Black New Yorkers.[3]
It is clear that we face significant ongoing and new challenges to a more effective response to substance use disorder. As you work to ensure that all New Yorkers get the resources they need during this pandemic and beyond, we urge you ensure that OASAS has the strong leadership required to adopt the innovative strategies and broad and equitable access to evidence-based substance use services that are critically needed to reduce harm and improve the lives of drug users and their loved ones.
Dr. Chinazo Cunningham has the in-depth experience and expertise required to lead the State’s renewed efforts to reduce harms associated with substance use and address inequities in access to and the quality of substance use services. Dr. Cunningham has spent more than two decades providing care, developing programs and conducting research focused on marginalized populations, including people who use drugs, people with HIV infection, and recently incarcerated people. She has also partnered with community to develop pioneering programs to promote the health of these populations. Since 1998, Dr. Cunningham has been on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she is now a Professor of Medicine, Family and Social Medicine, and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and is the Director of Diversity Affairs for the Department of Medicine. She also currently serves as the Executive Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), where she leads the agency’s work on mental health, alcohol and drug use prevention, care and treatment, health promotion for justice-impacted populations, among other bureaus.
Dr. Cunningham is highly regarded for implementing innovative, equity-driven, evidence-based initiatives to improve the lives of people with mental health and substance use issues, employing a judgment-free approach to work on behalf of New Yorkers who too often face stigma and discrimination. She has been a champion for integrating substance use services into the rest of the medical system to facilitate holistic care of patients dealing with substance use disorder. Dr. Cunningham led one of the first clinics in NYC to integrate buprenorphine into primary care, which subsequently expanded across seven clinics citywide. She has trained hundreds of doctors in the treatment of substance use disorders in primary care.
Parallel with program development, Dr. Cunningham is a physician researcher whose primary research interests include improving access to care and health outcomes among people who use drugs with or at-risk for HIV, buprenorphine treatment, opioid use and disorder, medical cannabis use, and collaborating with community-based organizations. She has been the principal investigator on numerous grants funded by the NIH, CDC, HRSA, local and state Departments of Health, and foundations, and has authored many peer-reviewed articles on substance use disorders, services, and models of care. She is currently leading the first long-term federally funded study on medical marijuana’s impact on opioid use for pain.
A widely recognized expert on substance use disorders and services, Dr. Cunningham has played a leading role in developing evidence-based best practices for addressing substance use disorder, preventing overdose deaths, and improving drug user health. She has served on numerous national advisory committees, including serving as the Chair of NY State Department of Health AIDS Institute’s Substance Abuse Committee; a member of the Opioid Guideline Workgroup of the CDC's Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain; a member of the NIH Office of AIDS Research’s Racial and Ethnic Populations Committee; and a member and Chair of the NIH’s Behavioral and Social Consequences of HIV/AIDS Study Section. She was lead author of the NYS Department of Health AIDS Institute guidelines on the treatment of opioid use disorder, developed to guide primary care providers and other NYS practitioners in providing opioid use disorder services.[4] In 2018, Dr. Cunningham was appointed to serve as a member of the CDC Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which addresses unintended overdoses. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder. She also served on the NYS working group charged with drafting legislation for regulated adult-use marijuana. Previously, Dr. Cunningham served on the NYC Mayor’s Heroin and Prescription Opioid Public Awareness Task Force.
During the COVID crisis, Dr. Cunningham worked to treat patients with COVID-19, brought attention to negative consequences for those in treatment for substance use disorder who are unable to access treatment and supports, and advocated for outpatient clinics to begin providing refills of buprenorphine prescriptions without requiring in-person visits to the doctor.
Dr. Cunningham received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, her medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and completed her residency in primary care internal medicine at UCSF and New York University (NYU). She spent a year as chief of residency at NYU. She also holds a master’s degree in clinical research methods that she completed during her time at Einstein.
As researchers, providers, and advocates committed to promoting the health of all New Yorkers, we look forward to working with you towards more effective and equitable substance use services. As individuals and organizations that have worked closely with Dr. Cunningham, we strongly believe she would be an innovative and effective leader of these efforts. We thank you for your consideration and urge you to consider Dr. Cunningham for the position of OASAS Commissioner.
Yours truly,
Ending the Epidemic Community Coalition members
AIDS Service Center NYC
Albany Damien Center
Albany Medical Center, Division of HIV Medicine
American College of Physicians, New York Chapter
Amida Care
APICHA Community Health Center
Black Health
BOOM! Health
Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, Statewise AIDS Service Delivery Consortium (SASDC)
Community Health Action of Staten Island
Community Minority Affairs
Correctional Association of New York, Prison Visiting Project
CUNY School of Public Health and Hunter College
Drug Policy Alliance
Erie County Department of Health
Evergreen Health Services
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC)
Gilead Sciences, HIV Medical Sciences
Harlem United
Harm Reduction Coalition
HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, NY State Psychiatric Institute
Housing Works, Inc.
Hudson River Health Care (HRHCare), Hispanic Health
Iris House
Latino Commission on AIDS
Legal Action Center
Lenox Hill Retroviral Disease Center, NYC
Montefiore Medical Center, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women’s Health, Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine
Mt Sinai Beth Israel, Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute
Nassau County Department of Health
New York State Association of County Health Officials (NYSACHO)
NYCDOHMH
NYS AIDS Advisory Council Chair
NYU College of Nursing, Center for Drug Use and HIV Research
Riverstone Consulting
Southern Tier AIDS Program
Sun River Health
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center (The Center)
The Nurse Practitioner Association New York State
Treatment Action Group (TAG)
Trillium Health
Truth Pharm
Unity Fellowship of Christ, NYC
VNSNY CHOICE SelectHealth
VOCAL - NY
[1] The ETE Community Coalition is a group of over 90 health care centers, hospitals, and community-based organizations across the State that are fully committed to realizing the goals of our historic New York State Blueprint for ending our HIV/AIDS epidemic by dramatically reducing new HIV infections and ending AIDS deaths.
[2] Ahmad FB, Rossen LM, Sutton P. Provisional drug overdose death counts. National Center for Health Statistics. 2021.
[3] Larochelle MR, Slavova S, Root ED, et al. Disparities in opioid overdose death trends by race/ethnicity, 2018–2019, from the HEALing Communities Study. Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print September 9, 2021:e1–e4. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306431
[4] Cunningham CO. Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University; New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute Clinical Guidelines. 2019 Aug. Available at https://www.hivguidelines.org/substance-use/oud/
