Policy and Public Health with The Honorable Alex M. Azar II '88
Join us for "Policy and Public Health: Navigating Complex Challenges to Build Better Outcomes" with The Honorable Alex M. Azar II '88
Join us for a conversation with The Honorable Alex M. Azar II '88, 24th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The conversation will focus on current priorities in national healthcare, and how policy can help shape better health outcomes in America. The conversation will be moderated by Professor Carrie Colla, Vice Chair, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice; Susan J. and Richard M. Levy Distinguished Chair in Health Care Delivery Science, and Professor Charles Wheelan, Faculty Director, Center for Business, Government, & Society; Clinical Professor of Business Administration.
The program will take place on Thursday, February 6 at 5 p.m. in Filene Auditorium. Registration is highly encouraged. To register visit http://dartgo.org/Azar.
Secretary Alex Azar has extensive healthcare experience in the senior-most levels of the U.S. government and the private sector that gives him a unique perspective and background. He has committed his professional career to protecting and enhancing the health of all Americans.
Azar served as the 24th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2018-2021), leading over 85,000 employees with a budget of over $1.4 trillion, the largest budget of any cabinet department on Earth. He was the architect of Operation Warp Speed, delivering COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics in record time. He led the historic transformation of the healthcare system in the United States and HHS’s response to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. He drove U.S. Government efforts to tackle the opioid crisis, increase private insurance options, bring transparency of price and quality information to healthcare, expand telehealth, give patients ownership of their health records and make those records interoperable and transportable, enable healthcare provider collaborative care models, remove regulatory barriers to low-cost, high-quality care, transform payment systems to pay for health and outcomes rather than sickness and procedures, reduce drug prices, and transform kidney care for the first time in almost 50 years. Azar also led key public health initiatives such as banning flavored e-cigarettes, reducing youth tobacco use by nearly one-third in one year and youth e-cigarette use by 54% in three years, creating and implementing the program to end the HIV epidemic in America in 10 years, preparing for and responding to public health threats, crafting the first rural health initiative to improve access and quality of care, and launching a program to reduce dramatically maternal mortality.
Azar earned a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in government and economics from Dartmouth College in 1988, and a law degree from Yale University in 1991. After law school, he clerked for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States.