Bowser Taps San Francisco Health Official To Lead DC Health

Dr. Ayanna Bennett. Image source: DCist.

From DCist:

Dr. Ayanna Bennett has been tapped to lead DC Health, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office announced Thursday. She will replace Dr. Sharon Lewis, a DC Health veteran who had been leading the agency in an interim capacity following the departure of Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt last July.

Bennett comes to the District from San Francisco, where she served as the Chief Health Equity Officer and led the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Office of Health Equity. She originally joined the San Francisco city government in 2016 as the city’s first-ever Director of Inderdivisional Initiatives, a role that involved working across city agencies to coordinate research, community engagement, and healthcare delivery.

Bennett will be inheriting a full plate when she starts on July 17, as the city continues to deal with the impacts of the COVID pandemic, monitors and responds to Mpox, and faces an increasingly deadly opioid crisis and gun violence epidemic. But first, she says she’ll be talking to community members, and public health leaders both inside and outside of DC Health.