Persistence, timing and policy change: An interview with Arlene King.

A rlene King is an accomplished public health leader. This includes serving as Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) from 2009–2014. Prior to that, she was Director General for Pandemic Preparedness and later Director General for a new Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases with the Public Health Agency of Canada. In the 1990s, Dr. King was a Medical Officer of Health in Burnaby and Vancouver, BC, and worked in senior positions at the BC Centre for Disease Control. Dr. King is an internationally-recognized expert in immunization, infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness and has been an active consultant on numerous initiatives for the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the World Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency. She received Health Canada’s Deputy Minister’s Award of Merit for her contribution to Canada’s National SARS Response, as well as the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada’s Medal for establishing Canada’s Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat. Dr. King is currently working as an international public health consultant and continues to be an adjunct professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.