Debbie Dowell, MD, MPH

Senior Medical Advisor/Chief Medical Officer, Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control

Debbie Dowell is Senior Medical Advisor/Chief Medical Officer for the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CDR in the US Public Health Service, and was the lead author of the 2016 CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. She previously led CDC’s Prescription Drug Overdose Team and served as advisor to New York City’s Health Commissioner. Dr. Dowell completed residency and chief residency in Primary Care Internal Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine, where she later joined the faculty as a clinical assistant professor. Dr. Dowell is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and practiced medicine at a community health center in New York City.

She has conducted research on quality and safety in medical care, on the effects of clinical guidelines, and on the effectiveness of interventions to prevent opioid overdose, including Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and academic detailing. She received her BA and MD from Columbia University, her MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and is a graduate of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS).