CLEVELAND

Toinette Parilla
Director
Cleveland Department of Public Health

Toinette Parrilla serves as Director of the Cleveland Department of Public Health (CDPH). She comes to the City of Cleveland with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry with an emphasis on regulatory practices and compliance. Under her leadership as a health care professional, she garnered a reputation for moving independent, assisted living and skilled nursing facilities from regulatory non-compliance to compliance status.

Director Parrilla previously served as the Deputy Director for the Illinois Department of Public Health - Office of Health Care Regulation; in that capacity she managed and led the 5th largest state agency program. She achieved great successes with federal performance measures, and in reforming the mental health and developmentally disabled health care services for the state. She managed the federal certification and state licensure regulatory requirements for over 12,000 health care entities for the state which served 12.4 million people from birth to death. She participated in and processed over 300 pieces of legislation to improve the quality of life and care for vulnerable populations.

As a passionate community leader, she has been actively engaged with issues related to social reform, the specialized and vulnerable populations, health inequities, minority health care, community education and outreach. In addition to leading the Cleveland Department of Public Health, she serves on various committees and boards, including: Cuyahoga Health Access Partnership (CHAP), Healthy Homes Advisory Council (HHAC); Health Improvement Partnership Cuyahoga County (HIP-C), and Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED).

Her three leadership tenets are:

1. COMMUNITY SERVICE. Director Parrilla places a priority on addressing the social determinants, health disparities and inequities within our community.
2. COMMUNICATION (EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL). She encourages information sharing between CDPH’s internal and external partners. It is Director Parrilla’s firm belief that population health data is the driving force behind impacting the change needed to meet the programmatic and service needs of our community.
3. COORDINATED CARE AND SERVICES. She values the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to identify Cleveland’s health needs at ward and census track levels to maximize the utilization of resources from the four major health systems, community entities, foundations and organizations.

Her enthusiasm as Mayor Frank Jackson’s Public Health Cabinet member to lead the City of Cleveland’s “Healthy Cleveland Initiative” is an honor and privilege moving forward.

She was born and raised in Northeastern Ohio and has a son, Christopher James Colón who attends Bowling Green State University. She received her B.S. in Dietetics from the University of Akron, in Akron, Ohio and received the Mid-American Public Health Leadership Certification from the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

Myron Bennett
Commissioner of Health
Cleveland Department of Public Health

Myron Bennett serves as Commissioner of Health for Cleveland Department of Public Health (CDPH). He has worked in public, nonprofit and private health care and public policy arenas, throughout the United States, for more than 30 years. He is an expert in the development, refinement and execution of advocacy strategies; the development of new strategic partnerships; and the development of funding relationships and strategies in support of public and community health. He is skilled at conceptualizing and managing high impact and complex partnerships, grants, coalitions, and advocacy campaigns. He has expertise in developing and executing policy and advocacy strategies; working closely with communications partners to support advocacy efforts; and supporting community and government leadership engagement in driving forward community informed strategies.