The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials announced Steven J. Stack, MD, MBA as its 81st president. Stack serves as commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health and chief medical officer for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, roles he has held since February 2020. He succeeds Anne Zink, MD, who has served as ASTHO’s president since September 2022.
As Kentucky’s health commissioner, Dr. Stack promotes healthier people and healthier communities through initiatives to transform the public health system throughout the Commonwealth through investments in public health workforce readiness, advancements in information technology, and health policy implementation at the federal, state, and county level. He has expertise in emergency department and hospital management, health system reform, physician licensure and regulation, and non-profit organization leadership.
“During the past few years, I have gained invaluable insight as an ASTHO member,” says ASTHO president Steven Stack, MD, MBA. “I’m honored to step into the role of president at this pivotal period in public health to further ASTHO’s vision of advancing health equity and optimal health for all. As president, I am committed to supporting ASTHO’s mission in partnership with other state health officials as we seek to strengthen public health workforce and infrastructure across the nation to ensure that every American can reach their full human potential.”
“I’m thrilled to welcome Dr. Stack as our next president,” says ASTHO CEO Michael Fraser, PhD. “He has lead Kentucky diligently as commissioner, and we know he will do the same for ASTHO. His dedication to innovation and improving public health will be integral in this upcoming year. His experience leading AMA as its youngest president since 1854 will certainly advance our Board’s work and ASTHO’s effectiveness.”
Stack pairs public health and medical expertise, having over 19 years of experience as a board-certified emergency physician and medical director in multiple emergency departments in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Stack has seen firsthand the critical role policy plays in the everyday life of patients and has advocated for access to affordable and high-quality healthcare.
Prior to Stack’s appointment as Kentucky’s health commissioner, he served in the non-profit sector as a board member and secretary for Washington DC-based eHealth Initiative (2012-2016), an association dedicated to innovation and solutions in healthcare through implementation of health technology. Stack also served as one of the youngest presidents of the American Medical Association (AMA), having also been the first emergency physician elected to the AMA board of trustees prior (2006-2016).
Stack studied at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts before completing medical school and his emergency medicine residency at The Ohio State University, in his home state. He began his clinical practice in Memphis, Tennessee before moving with his wife and daughter to Lexington, Kentucky. He completed his MBA at Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, where he now teaches as an adjunct professor in the Physician Executive MBA program. There, his passion coincides with the practical, teaching both physician and non-physician healthcare leaders the process of advocacy and how healthcare policy affects all aspects of patient care.
ASTHO is the national nonprofit organization representing the public health agencies of the United States, the U.S. territories and Freely Associated States, and Washington, D.C., as well as the more than 100,000 public health professionals these agencies employ. ASTHO members, the chief health officials of these jurisdictions, are dedicated to formulating and influencing sound public health policy and to ensuring excellence in public health practice.
