Career
Early career and global health
Ashwin Vasan began career in global HIV/AIDS,working with Partners In Health (PIH) in Boston before moving to the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization,under PIH Co-founder Dr. Jim Yong Kim,on the “3by5”Initiative to increase access to HIV treatment. He spent time in Switzerland,rural Uganda,Lesotho and Rwanda,with PIH once again,for this work. [6] After completing his internal medicine training at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital,in 2014 Vasan joined the faculty of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health,and the Department of Medicine at Columbia's Vagelos College of Physicians &Surgeons,where he works as an assistant professor of clinical population and family health and medicine,and has taught courses in global health,implementation science,and policy. [5] Vasan practices primary care medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. More recently,he has been an global advocate for pandemic preparedness,funding of global HIV/AIDS programs,and the health impacts of climate change.
Public Service in New York City
In 2016,Vasan was appointed by Dr Mary Bassett to serve as the founding executive director of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's [7] Health Access Equity Unit,a city-wide initiative aimed at improving the health and social welfare of marginalized communities in New York City,with a particular focus on formerly incarcerated people. [8]
Mental Health and Fountain House
In 2019,Vasan was named president and CEO of Fountain House,a national mental health nonprofit that provides employment,education,housing,health and wellness programs to the mentally ill. [9] Fountain House is notable for creating the Clubhouse model of psychosocial rehabilitation,which has been replicated in over 300 locations in 30 countries. [7] During his tenure,Vasan helped grow the organization nationally,supporting eight markets,and establishing a policy office based in Washington,DC working on funding for community based mental health systems and mental health crisis response. During his tenure the organization was supported by new gifts from MacKenzie Scott and the Ford Foundation,amongst others.
Tenure as NYC Health Commissioner
Vasan was appointed as Health Commissioner of New York City on December 21,2021.
As Commissioner,Vasan reoriented Department and the City's public health planning to focus on falling life expectancy and inequity, [10] culminating in the launch of HealthyNYC,the city's population health agenda aiming to increase life expectancy to its highest-ever mark of 83 years old by 2030. [11] This agenda was later passed into local law,making HealthyNYC a permanent feature of city planning, [12] and he has proposed that the program could be a model to address nationwide declines in life expectancy. [13]
A central focus of his tenure was mental health,launching a citywide mental health agenda Care,Community,Action:A Mental Health Plan for NYC which focused on youth mental health,overdoses,and serious mental illness. In support,the agency built NYC TeenSpace which has served thousands of teens in NYC with no-cost telehealth therapy;expanded access to rehabilitative clubhouses for people with severe mental health challenges,and;addressed the link between social media and mental health,leading to the City's lawsuit against Meta,TikTok,YouTube,and SnapChat alleging impact of their unregulated platforms on youth mental health. He helped modernize the agency culture and processes,moving towards response readiness and strengthening its data systems in preparation for the next pandemic or health emergency,while also focusing on workforce wellness and resilience. He has also focused on health care access and affordability,building a program to cancel $2 billion in medical debt for 500,000 low income New Yorkers over three years,with the Department establishing an Office of Healthcare Accountability,aiming to improve transparency around healthcare prices.
Under Dr. Vasan,the Department built a nation-leading response to reproductive health after the Supreme Court's ruling in the Dobbs case, launching the nation's first public sector Abortion Access Hub,where people from all across the U.S. and especially in states in new restrictions on abortion,can call and be navigated to attain reproductive health and abortion care in New York City,and becoming the first city to offer medication abortion at its public health clinics,in addition to telehealth access.
Dr. Vasan began his tenure toward the end of the Omicron wave of COVID-19,and steered administration strategy on vaccination,testing,and new treatments,where the city developed the first-in-the-nation telehealth and home delivery program for Paxlovid. He then led NYC's response to the mpox outbreak in summer 2022,with the city the epicenter of the North American outbreak. The Health Department was the first in the nation to launch mpox vaccination clinics in June 2022,doing so under extreme national vaccine supply constraints. These clinics,and the close partnership with community leaders,advocates,and providers led to the federal government to launching national mpox response and vaccination strategy just a few weeks later in early July 2022. New York City vaccinated over 100,000 people in the 2022 mpox outbreak,and within weeks cases dramatically declined and the end of the outbreak was eventually declared in early 2023.
Resignation
On September 23,2024,in the midst of the investigations into the Eric Adams administration,Vasan announced that he will leave his position as NYC Health Commissioner after a nearly three-year term,citing family reasons, [14] [15] and later brought up that date to October 18th,citing "greater urgency". [16] [17] The Health Department and City Hall confirmed that his resignation was unrelated to the criminal investigation of Mayor Eric Adams. In an interview with the New York Times,Vasan was quoted as saying "I'm so far away from that world,and my focus has been on the health of the city.” [18]
Media,National and International Work
Vasan's writing and quotations as a public health and mental health expert in national and international publications including CNN, [19] The New York Times , [20] NPR, [21] CBS News, [22] USA Today , [23] The Guardian , [24] Forbes , [25] WNYC, [26] Al Jazeera, [27] today.com, [28] and Insider. [29] He was also the subject of a Lancet profile outlining his agenda for improving health in NYC.
He has also served on the boards of the Greater New York Hospital Association,NYC Health+Hospitals,New York Academy of Medicine,Public Health Solutions,The Fund for Public Health for NYC,Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health Transportation Alternatives,inseparable,and Forward Majority. [9] Vasan was also a member of the City &State advisory board until assuming his current role as NYC Health Commissioner,and has worked on multiple local,state,and national political campaigns as a health policy advisor.
