Ali Abazeed serves as Chief Public Health Officer and Director of the Detroit Health Department, appointed by Mayor Mary Sheffield. He oversees more than 280 public health professionals and a nearly $50 million annual budget, leading the department’s strategy, operations, and policy direction. He leads the city’s Health in All Policies approach, integrating health considerations across departments and decision-making to improve outcomes for all Detroiters.

He was born in Detroit and raised in Dearborn, along the Tireman border where differences in place translate directly into differences in health. That proximity to inequity has shaped his approach to public health, grounded in the belief that health outcomes are not inevitable but are shaped by policy, investment, and design.

Prior to this role, Abazeed was Founding Director and Chief Public Health Officer of the Dearborn Department of Public Health, where he built Michigan’s second municipal health department from the ground up. He established its operational infrastructure, embedded health into city governance, and led work that expanded environmental health protections, strengthened maternal and child health, reduced drug overdoses, and brought the Rx Kids maternal and infant program to the city. He also helped redefine how local public health communicates, building a narrative-driven, resident-centered model that has been recognized nationally.

Before returning to Michigan, Abazeed served across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a Presidential Management Fellow and later as a Public Health Advisor at the National Institutes of Health. His work spanned the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the National Cancer Institute, focusing on federal health policy, program implementation, and expanding access to research and services.

He began his public service career at the Detroit Health Department as a policy fellow during the city’s post-bankruptcy recovery, contributing to lead abatement and refugee health efforts. He is faculty at Wayne State University, where he teaches Health in All Policies and mentors the next generation of public health leaders.

Abazeed holds a Master of Public Health, a Master of Public Policy, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan, and completed executive education in Implementing Public Poilcy at Harvard Kennedy School. His work is grounded in the belief that public health is the foundation of opportunity and that the conditions shaping health in cities are not fixed, but can be redesigned.