Former Chicago Health Commissioner Arwady To Join CDC

CHICAGO — Chicago’s former top health official, Dr. Allison Arwady, who became one of the faces of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city, will join the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention in January, the federal agency announced on Thursday.

The 47-year-old Arwady will join the CDC as the Atlanta-based agency’s director of the National Center For Injury Prevention and Control. The division of the CDC works to prevent overdoses, violence, suicide, and other injuries, according to the CDC’s website.

Arwady will join the CDC on Jan. 16, according to a CDC spokesperson.

Arwady will join the CDC after four years as the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, which is the nation’s third-largest health department. She led the city’s health department during the COVID-19 pandemic and worked extensively with CDC officials throughout the pandemic. She was named the city's health commissioner by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Arwady is nationally recognized for her strong leadership and communications skills, which are pivotal in the role she will assume with the CDC, an agency spokesperson told Patch on Thursday.

Arwady makes the move after being fired by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson in a move that the city’s former top health officer said blindsided her. According to reports, Arwady was dismissed from her role with the city and was not permitted to return to the office to address her staff.

With the CDC, Arwardy said she will lead a team of hundreds of staff members and scientists who conduct research and provide necessary health services across the country, Crain’s Chicago reported on Thursday. Among the biggest focuses of the department, Arwady told Crain’s, is to prevent gun-related deaths.

“It’s a big role, but it should be for a big problem,” Arwardy told Crain’s.

Arwady previously worked with the CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. In that role, she focused on outbreak response, including international work on Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

Before being fired by Johnson, Arwardy served as the Chicago Department of Public Health’s chief medical officer in 2020 and became the city’s chief medical officer. Arwady holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a master’s degree from Yale, where she also completed medical school and her clinical training.