Minneapolis’ new health commissioner brings experience battling pandemic and opioid crisis to new role

By Abdi Mohamed

Contributing Writer

It’s been just over two weeks since Damōn Chaplin arrived in Minneapolis to take on his role as the city’s next health commissioner, and he’s hit the ground running.

With over 25 years of experience in public health administration and human-services related work, Commissioner Chaplin is embarking on the latest chapter of his career in leading the city’s health department which is responsible for nearly 425,000 residents.

Chaplin traces his interest in a public health career to his upbringing in Boston. He grew up in subsidized housing and saw how government policies directly impacted communi- ties of color.

After high school, Chaplin would go on to study biology at Central State University in Ohio and return to Massachusetts for a graduate degree in business at Curry College. As an athlete at Central State, who played football and ran track; things were cut short for him after an injury forced him off the field.

But it was more personal experiences that led him to where he is today. Chaplin lost his father in 2004, and his mother roughly a decade later in 2015. He believes the loss of his parents has underscored the importance of a public health career for him.

“They both passed away way before their time,” he said. “It helped me to begin to look at my life through lens of public health, social determinants of health, and racial health equity.” his commissioner of Minneapolis’s Department of Health, Chaplin served as the health director for the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he oversaw several different public health initiatives.

During his time in this role, Chaplin led Massachusetts’s Large Cities Coalition made up of the state’s 14 largest cities. He credits the municipal collaboration to the history of the region’s connectivity between state agencies and the private sector.

“I think that’s one of the strengths of the New England area, particularly in Massachusetts, that the healthcare system and the public health system are pretty well integrated,” he said. “I see some of those similar relationships here in Minneapolis.”