
Dr. Mandy Cohen, former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, will change outgoing CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
Bryan Anderson/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Bryan Anderson/AP

Dr. Mandy Cohen, former secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, will change outgoing CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
Bryan Anderson/AP
President Biden has named Dr. Mandy Cohen, former state well being secretary in North Carolina, to function the subsequent chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In his announcement, Biden praised Cohen’s expertise and management. “Dr. Cohen is among the nation’s prime physicians and well being leaders,” Biden mentioned within the assertion, “[She] has been acknowledged by leaders from each events” for her skill [to] discover widespread floor and put advanced coverage into motion.”
Cohen, 44, is an inside drugs doctor who has served in prime positions in state and federal authorities and within the personal sector. From 2017-2021, she served as well being secretary in North Carolina, the place she labored on increasing entry to well being take care of low-income residents and have become the face of the state’s COVID-19 response in the course of the public well being emergency.
She leaves her present place, as an govt on the well being care firm Aledade, to steer the CDC, a federal company whose morale and fame has been deeply tarnished by its pandemic response. She takes the helm from Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the present director, whose final day on the job is June 30.
“Her expertise at each the federal and state stage equips her to fulfill the challenges we face at present, tomorrow, and within the years forward,” mentioned Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services, in an announcement on Friday welcoming Cohen’s appointment.
In Cohen, supporters see a seasoned chief in public well being — and politics
Those that know Cohen describe her as a powerful supervisor and communicator who approaches robust duties head on.
“I feel she’s precisely the precise selection,” says Andy Slavitt, a former Biden adviser and administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who promoted her to the positions of chief of employees and chief working officer at CMS throughout his tenure.
The CDC “wants somebody who understands the best way to make well being and public well being a actuality in folks’s lives, the best way to implement issues operationally, the best way to elevate the morale and tradition of an company that is been badly bruised,” says Slavitt, who suggested each the Biden administration and Dr. Cohen on the seek for the subsequent CDC director.
Cohen could be the final CDC director to be appointed with out Senate affirmation (Congressional approval for a CDC director will likely be required beginning January 2025, per necessities within the FY 2023 omnibus invoice).
She’ll probably face regular criticism from some Republicans in Congress, who’ve held a number of hearings on what they body because the CDC’s failures to steer in recent times. “Throughout the pandemic, CDC printed complicated steering and made divisive and complicated statements,” mentioned Congressman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, at latest a listening to with outgoing CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, “Instead of being a relaxed and trusted voice of science and cause, the American folks felt let down, usually deceived and left broken.”
Supporters say Cohen is seasoned at navigating politics, having labored for each the Obama administration and the state authorities in North Carolina. It’s a talent she’ll want as she advocates for extra money and broader authorities for the company.
“One of the issues she brings, having labored for a Democratic governor [Roy Cooper] in a Republican state, is discovering the language that brings folks collectively, versus fomenting the noise of the political discourse,” says Marylou Sudders, former well being and human companies secretary in Massachusetts, who often consulted with Cohen in the course of the pandemic.
Those who’ve labored with Cohen describe her as a superb supervisor and chief.
“She’s an knowledgeable in managing folks and implementing coverage,” says Natalie Davis, CEO of the nonprofit well being care advocacy group United States of Care, who as soon as reported to Cohen as a staffer within the Obama administration. “She is a strategist and operator and is aware of the best way to have a imaginative and prescient and see it by, to all of the groups and folks that [make it] work.”
Can Cohen rebuild CDC within the wake of pandemic?
The CDC is an company of 10,000 workers, tasked with protecting the general public from threats to their well being and security. Internally, the company has been plagued with attrition and low morale, as they confronted criticism for politicization and poor communication of their pandemic response.
Outgoing director Dr. Rochelle Walensky had documented a number of the company’s “fairly dramatic, fairly public” errors, as she described it in an inside video to employees considered by NPR, earlier than restructuring the senior management and components of the company in latest months, with the objective of creating the CDC extra nimble in its response to well being threats.
“Having a CDC director who’s attentive, spending time with employees, serving to the company get again on its ft and get some confidence again will likely be essential,” says Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer on the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
One of the most important challenges going through Cohen will likely be restoring belief and credibility with the general public.
Trust within the U.S. authorities is close to historic lows, according to a 2022 Pew Research ballot – simply 20% of Americans say they belief the federal government to do what is correct more often than not. And with regards to public well being particularly, a 2021 ballot by the Harvard School of Public Health discovered that simply half of these surveyed within the U.S. have quite a lot of belief within the CDC.
It’s a subject that Cohen centered on in her graduation deal with at Guilford College final month.
“Trust in establishments, corresponding to authorities, or media, or enterprise, has been eroding in recent times. This lack of belief has led to polarization and division, and has made it more durable to unravel essential points going through our world,” she mentioned.
Cohen constructed belief with North Carolinians throughout COVID, says Dr. Georges Benjamin, govt director of the American Public Health Association. “She was all the time proper on the right track speaking to the general public – clear, engaged,” he says, “[In public health], you may have to have the ability to successfully articulate the decision-making you probably did, and she or he’s higher than most in doing that.”
In addition to steering the CDC and advocating for its price range and authorities in Washington, the brand new director faces a slew of rising public well being issues.
“We have an weight problems epidemic, opioid epidemic, a firearm epidemic,” says Benjamin. “We have a rising variety of STD’s, and a dedication we have made to get a deal with round HIV/AIDS,” plus potential outbreaks from COVID, Ebola, fowl flu, and re-emerging childhood vaccine-preventable illnesses corresponding to polio and measles.
“Public well being is busy, constantly busy,” Benjamin says, “Rebuilding the general public well being system within the U.S. has bought to be a prime precedence.”