Title
Honoring Dr. Donald Schwarz for his service as Deputy Mayor for Health and Opportunity and Health Commissioner.
Body
WHEREAS, In 2008, Mayor Nutter appointed Dr. Donald Schwarz as Deputy Mayor for Health and Opportunity and Health Commissioner and, in this role, Dr. Schwarz was responsible for the Departments of Health, Human Services, Behavioral Health, and Intellectual Disability Services and the Office of Supportive Housing; and
WHEREAS, During Dr. Schwarz' tenure Philadelphia has seen a more than 50% increase in permanent housing for homeless individuals and families, rates of dependent children removed from their families have been reduced by 24% and the number of dependent children placed out of state went down by 75%, access to the City's behavioral health system and the number of those with serious mental illness who have moved to independent, community-based living has increased substantially, and Philadelphia has seen a 5% reduction in childhood obesity and has seen adult obesity rates decline; and
WHEREAS, As Health Commissioner, Dr. Schwarz worked to initiate successful smoking cessation programs and adult smoking rates have declined by more than 15%, condom promotion efforts were initiated and rates of gonorrhea in adolescents have come down by more than 33%, electronic health records have been brought to Philadelphia's health centers, the City's food safety inspection program has moved to a risk-based, more efficient system, Philadelphia has reached its lowest rates of infant mortality, and the City has achieved some of the nation's highest rates of childhood immunization; and
WHEREAS, Through his leadership, Dr. Schwarz helped to create a unique public private partnership with Children's Hospital to develop a new $42 million health, library, recreation center complex to serve the needs of the South Philadelphia community and the City; and
WHEREAS, Before entering government service, Dr. Schwarz served as Vice Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Deputy Physician-in-Chief and Craig-Dalsmier Division Chief for Adolescent Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and he was the Mary D. Ames Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Schools of Medicine and Nursing, and a senior fellow at the University's Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics; and
WHEREAS, For over 22 years, Dr. Schwarz was an active researcher in the area of adolescent risk behaviors and he received both public and private funding for work that examined the issues of injury and its prevention in urban, minority communities, public policy approaches to adolescent violence, and physician and nurse practice based interventions to improve outcomes for high risk infants; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That we hereby honor Dr. Donald Schwarz for his service as Deputy Mayor for Health and Opportunity and Health Commissioner.
FURTHER RESOLVED, That an Engrossed copy of this resolution be presented to Dr. Schwarz as evidence of the sincere sentiments of this legislative body.
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