The Monroe County Legislature confirmed Dr. Marielena Vélez de Brown on Tuesday as the county's new commissioner of public health.

Dr. Vélez de Brown has served as acting commissioner since March following the news that Dr. Michael Mendoza, who had served as county health commissioner since 2016, was stepping down.

"It has been incredibly gratifying to be part of a community-wide initiative working with partners, through the University of Rochester [and] Department of Public Health Sciences, in terms of trying to increase breastfeeding rates and helping employers or institutions become breastfeeding-friendly daycare centers or employers or things like that," Vélez de Brown said. "And so we did some of that work, with Monroe County itself and just trying to educate women about their right to express breast milk."

She now begins a six-year term as the county's top health leader.

“It's a really proud moment for me to have arrived to this point in my career [and] to be the first woman to lead this department [and] to be the first Latina to hold this position," she smiled.

“Dr. Vélez de Brown has demonstrated outstanding dedication to the health and wellbeing of our community,” Monroe County Executive Adam Bello said in a statement. “Her expertise and commitment to health equity make her the ideal leader for Monroe County’s Department of Public Health. I thank the legislature for their support in confirming Dr. Vélez de Brown, and I’m confident she will continue driving meaningful improvements for residents throughout the county.”

Bello says Vélez de Brown, who is originally from Philadelphia, earned a master’s of public health from the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Rochester and joined the county health department in 2016. The county executive says she has served as medical director of Monroe County’s Starlight Pediatrics and has worked to boost health access for underserved groups, especially those not fluent in English, and aided in the county's response to the opioid crisis.

“It's incredibly challenging, but very gratifying work to be the primary care physician for children involved in the foster care system that Starlight Pediatrics," Vélez de Brown said. "So that's a clinic that the county runs where we provide holistic, trauma-informed primary medical care for what I would argue is one of the most vulnerable populations in our community. These are children that have been abused or neglected enough that they've finally been removed. So we do all the regular developmental screeners and, you know, well-child checks and school physicals. But we're also very closely connected to the child and adolescent mental health community, because these patients are at such high risk of developing mental health, behavioral health consequences of their early life traumas.”

"I was proud to appoint Dr. Marielena Vélez de Brown, M.D., M.P.H as the Monroe County Commissioner of Public Health," Monroe County Legislature President Yversha Román said in a statement. "She is the first woman, Latina, and mother to serve as the Commissioner. She has dedicated her life to service and our community, including the last eight years of her career at Monroe County."

The new commissioner says her former role with the county taught her a lot throughout the pandemic about the needs of the community.

“It was almost a 24-over-seven operation," she said. "It was very, very challenging. One main lesson that I learned that I will carry with me forever is to make sure that I provide my staff with the mental health supports that they need, because we were sometimes receiving information at the last minute, like the general public did, and then having to turn around and answer hundreds of phone calls about every single change. We went from being provider of life-saving, life-protecting information to really being demonized. I wish I had provided my staff with group facilitated sessions, made one-on-one counseling more available to folks who were getting cursed out, or being really verbally abused on the phone when they were just trying to do their jobs while just informing community members about what was the safest choice or course of action they could take to protect themselves, their families, the greater community. So that was a hard lesson learned that is now in all of our plans for every response.”

Being the county's first Latina to serve as commisioner of public health, she has goals to bring a voice to underrepresented communities throughout Monroe County health care systems.

“Having an equity focus in that area will also mean we've got to find a way to diversify the therapist pool so that folks can find a provider that maybe has a more ingrained understanding of their experience," Vélez de Brown said. "And really just hoping to collaborate with the treatment community to respond to some of the data that my department has specifically around opioids, where we need to get more, supports for African American older men. They're the ones that are dying disproportionately of this opioid epidemic. And so what are our treatment providers doing to make sure there's culturally tailored, specific supports for that community?”

She's looking forward to working with the many programs the county already has in place, and bringing her expertise to better serve the community she calls home.

“I’m honored to serve Monroe County in this role,” Vélez de Brown said in a statement. “I want to thank County Executive Bello and the legislature for their trust and support. Our county faces important public health challenges, from tackling the opioid crisis to addressing the social circumstances that influence health, such as poverty, safe housing, educational disparities, racism and violence. I am committed to advancing initiatives that address these needs head-on and promote equity across our community. Working together with our dedicated public health team and community partners, I look forward to building a healthier, more resilient Monroe County where all residents have the opportunity to thrive.”