Mayor Fenty, OPEFM Executive Director Allen Y. Lew Provide Update on School Facility Maintenance

WASHINGTON, DC—Mayor Adrian M. Fenty today named Pierre Vigilance, M.D., MPH as director of the D.C. Department of Health (DOH). Vigilance, a veteran public health leader, will lead a team of experts including Dr. Shannon Hader (HIV/AIDS Administration) and Tori Fernandez Whitney (Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration) in aggressively running one of the city’s most important agencies.

“This is a great day for the wellbeing of all District residents,” said Mayor Fenty. “Dr. Vigilance brings us an energy that’s unparalleled in his field, and a wealth of experience in dealing with urban health issues. We’re excited to have him on board.”

Dr. Pierre Vigilance
Director, Department of Health
Dr. Pierre Vigilance is a public health leader who aims to keep human service agencies focused on the target populations in greatest need. He joins the District Government after serving as the director and health officer of the Baltimore County Department of Health since 2005. In that capacity, he led an agency of 500 staff covering a jurisdiction of approximately 800,000 residents and a $50 million annual budget. He established a quantitative management reporting system to improve performance management and was responsible for improving access to care for the medically uninsured by increasing the number of Kaiser Permanente ”Bridge” program slots from 300 to 525 (75%) in just two years. He has been instrumental in local legislative changes aimed at reducing youth access to tobacco and has been a collaborator with the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health to provide regular applied public health internship opportunities. He has also served as incident commander for local and statewide emergency preparedness deployments and drills.
   
Prior to that, Dr. Vigilance served as the assistant commissioner for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Baltimore City Health Department.  In that capacity, he was responsible for the city’s communicable disease surveillance system and oversaw education, advocacy and outreach programs related to HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis.  Dr. Vigilance has long been an advocate of improved access to healthcare and effective case management services, two public health challenges that he tackled as the director of an innovative substance abuse program in East Baltimore.  

In his role as an associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, he
has been actively involved in promoting applied public health, and building collaborations between academia and local public health agencies.  He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the George Washington University, his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.  He received his clinical training in Emergency Medicine at Howard University Hospital in the District of Columbia, which allowed him to see the health care delivery system and the role of public health from a unique perspective.