New Health Commissioner Shares Frieden Priorities

Mayor's Office/Spencer Tucker THOMAS FARLEY: Grabs baton from Frieden.

Mayor Bloomberg May 18 announced the appointment of Dr. Thomas A. Farley as Health Commissioner, three days after Dr. Thomas Frieden announced his departure because he had been chosen by the Obama Administration to run the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Dr. Farley, a pediatrician and epidemiologist, currently heads the Department of Community Health Sciences and the Prevention Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, and has been a senior adviser to Dr. Frieden since 2007.

Focus Still on Smoking, Obesity

"New Yorkers are living longer, healthier lives than ever before, but immense challenges remain. I am delighted to have a leader of Tom Farley's caliber here to help us meet them," the Mayor said.

"As Commissioner, I hope to continue to make advances against the leading causes of death today—such as smoking and obesity—while also constantly improving the many other ways we protect the health of New Yorkers," Dr. Farley said, adding that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had "a record of generating innovative ideas, putting them into place, and then proving that they work."

Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda Gibbs called Dr. Farley "a distinguished and well-respected public-health professional," saying he had a "proven ability to as- sess community needs, and to deal with urgent situations like the sudden emergence of a new strain of influenza."

Dr. Farley will assume his post in early June, and has been working on a transition committee with Dr. Frieden for several weeks. His past work with the DHMH included its display of calorie information in chain restaurants and the reduction of salt in processed foods. He worked extensively in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, helping to rebuild the city's public-health and health-care infrastructure.