Dr. Frieden is a physician trained in internal medicine, infectious diseases, public health, and epidemiology. He began his public health career in New York City, where he identified and led successful control of the largest outbreak of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis to occur in the US. He was then assigned to India, on loan from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he helped scale up a program for effective tuberculosis diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring. Asked to return to New York City to become Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Health Commissioner, he led efforts to reduce smoking and other leading causes of death and increased life expectancy by 3 years. As Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009-2017, Dr. Frieden oversaw the work that helped end the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic. He has published more than 250 articles, reports, and chapters on a wide range of infectious diseases (e.g., tuberculosis, HIV, antibiotic resistance, Ebola, Zika, cholera, typhoid, anthrax), non-communicable diseases and risk factors (e.g., tobacco, heart disease, cancer, opioid use, sodium, obesity, nutrition), and health policy (e.g., emergency response, disparities, health policy, management, and implementation). Dr. Tom Frieden now leads Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies which aims to save millions of lives from cardiovascular disease and make the world safer from epidemics.
Dr. Tom Frieden is former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former commissioner of the New York City Health Department. He is currently president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of the global health organization Vital Strategies. Resolve to Save Lives works with countries to prevent 100 million deaths and to make the world safer from epidemics. Dr. Frieden is also Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. @DrTomFrieden.