Photo courtesy of the Minneapolis Health Department
Damōn Chaplin
“One of my favorite things to do is walk,” says Damōn Chaplin, the new health commissioner for the Minneapolis Health Department. “I get to meet people on the street. I’m a people person, and I truly believe in engaging and listening to community members to learn about the needs of our city.”
In March, Chaplin replaced the City of Minneapolis’s interim health director Heidi Ritchie as the second commissioner in 20 years tasked with improving health outcomes in the city. The former public health director for the City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, Chaplin cites the opioid epidemic and homelessness among the top issues he plans to address as a leader in the local public health sector. Nominated by Mayor Jacob Frey in January, Chaplin will serve as commissioner until his term expires in 2025.
“I look forward to helping the Health Department amplify the great work we are already doing to make Minneapolis a destination city to live, work, and play,” he says.
We chatted with Chaplin about his goals for health and happiness in the city as the new director of Minneapolis’s health department.
What made you want to pursue public health as a career?
My initial introduction into public health was as a naturalist with the Cleveland Metroparks in 1995. I can honestly say it was nearly nine years ago when my mother passed away at age 66—and my father passed away 10 years prior at the age of 54—when I began to re-evaluate my life with a public-health lens and adopt my public health story as the foundation for my pursuit for social justice and public health reform.
Being new to Minneapolis, what are your favorite parts of town so far? What parts are you most excited to explore?
So far, I have briefly explored other areas of the city through community meetings and/or special events, but I have spent most of my time in the downtown/North Loop area. I have enjoyed a few of the professional sporting events and am looking forward to both planned and unplanned opportunities to engage with the community.
What are your top priorities as the new health commissioner?
Unsheltered engagement and support; substance misuse and prevention; and racial and health equity.
Public health seems like a straightforward topic, but it’s laced with complexities: identity, background, family dynamics, support networks, funding. How do you navigate these challenges with an emphasis on equity?
The Minneapolis Health Department seeks to eliminate all forms of structural inequities that impact health. We lead with dismantling structural racism in these efforts because racial inequities persist in every system across the country, without exception, and influence both social determinants of health and independent factors in health outcomes.
As a result, when developing policies, we are focused on determining whether or not the policy clearly articulates the goals of the policy, if the policy was implemented as intended, and if the policy produced the intended/unintended outcomes and impacts.
The past three years have been filled with conversations about public health, but even though cases of COVID-19 are on the decline, public health issues are still a huge topic of conversation. How has the pandemic informed your work? How has the pandemic informed the future of public health issues?
Some of the key takeaways from COVID-19 [include tailoring] COVID-19 communication strategies to ensure the right communities receive the right information at the right time; [making] sure you are communicating at the right frequency and cadence for the target community (i.e. some communities require more frequent messaging to ensure an appropriate response), [and being] proactive. Prior to COVID-19, we were unaware of the depth of the communication deficiencies within our BIPOC communities and since then, we have dedicated resources to address these concerns both internally and externally.
How do you represent local and regional public health efforts on a more national scale?
I currently serve on the executive board for the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NAACHO). NAACHO serves as a forum for sharing best practices, knowledge, and resources among local health departments while also helping to build their capacity and enhance their ability to respond to public health challenges. NAACHO also advocates for policies and funding to support local public health efforts and works to increase public awareness and engagement in public health.
As a national leader in advocating for a pro-equity policy agenda and funding in areas that are under-resourced or facing significant health disparities, NAACHO has a unique opportunity to leverage its expansive partnerships among large and small health departments, academic institutions, and research organizations toward eliminating health disparities and reforming the local public health system as we know it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
