As Baltimore searches for a new health commissioner after firing its Health Department leader last month, Mayor Brandon Scott announced Thursday that two top Johns Hopkins University public health specialists and former City Hall officials will advise his administration.
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein and Michelle Spencer, both with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will advise the Scott administration in a part-time capacity while retaining their roles at the university. The pair’s work for the Scott administration is supported by Hopkins’ Bloomberg American Health Initiative, according to a news release.
The announcement comes weeks after Scott fired former Health Commissioner Dr. Ihuoma Emenuga less than seven months into the job. The Maryland State Prosecutor’s Office is pursuing a criminal investigation into work Emenuga was doing for a nonprofit health clinic during her time with the Health Department.
For Sharfstein and Spencer, the move marks a return to city government.
The vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Bloomberg School, Sharfstein served as Baltimore’s health commissioner from 2005 to 2009, before leading the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and becoming principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Spencer has worked in public health management and leadership roles for more than 25 years, according to the news release, focusing on health equity and racial disparities. She is deputy director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and a professor in the university’s Department of Health Policy and Management, and she previously served for eight years as chief of staff in the Baltimore City Health Department.
With Sharfstein and Spencer’s help, Scott said his administration will strengthen its Health Department to address urgent challenges, including the overdose crisis.
“Their deep knowledge, experience, and dedication to health equity will be invaluable and will certainly help ensure that the invaluable work of the Health Department continues uninterrupted,” the mayor said.
In May, The Baltimore Banner and New York Times reported that the overdose rate in Baltimore was far higher than in any other major American city. The Scott administration is pursuing litigation against opioid manufacturers and distributors that it hopes could lead to a transformative amount of money to support the city’s overdose response.
Last week, Scott’s office announced that it was bringing Sara Whaley, program director for Hopkins’ Bloomberg Overdose Prevention Initiative and author of a national best practices guide for distribution of funds from opioid litigation, to advise on the use of pharmaceutical settlement funds. The city has netted $90 million from two opioid distributors and is scheduled for trial with remaining companies in the lawsuit next month.
