Dr. Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson

Keeping Families and Communities Safe: Public Health Approaches to Reduce Violence and Firearm Misuse Leading to Injury and Death

"NCDHHS Secretary, State Health Director Address Local Health Directors, Discuss COVID-19 and Monkeypox" See full remarks. 

Dr. Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson serves North Carolina as the State Health Director and the Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Health and Human Services. In this role, she promotes public health and prevention activities, as well as provides guidance and oversight on a variety of cross-departmental issues, including the opioid epidemic, early childhood, Medicaid Transformation and Healthy Opportunities. 

Tilson has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Dartmouth College, a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a master’s degree in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She completed a pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a general preventive medicine/public health residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is board certified in both fields.

Before joining DHHS, Tilson was the Medical Director of Community Care of Wake and Johnston Counties, one of the 14 Community Care of North Carolina networks, and as the Chief Network Clinical Officer for CCNC. Prior roles have also included serving as an Assistant Consulting Professor and Cancer Control Specialist with Duke University Medical Center and a Clinical Pediatric Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tilson practiced primary care pediatrics for 26 years, primarily at her local health department – Wake County Human Services Child Health Clinic. She has been active in many local, state and national pediatric, public health and preventive medicine organizations, in which she has served in numerous leadership roles.