Leadership

Public Health Surveillance and Informatics Program Office (proposed)

James W. Buehler, MD
Director

James W. Buehler, MD, is director of the Public Health Surveillance and Informatics Program Office (proposed) and has devoted much of his career to the field of public health surveillance. His experience includes analyzing data, developing and managing surveillance systems, ensuring that surveillance activities are conducted ethically, and collaborating with program managers and community advocates in using surveillance and other information-gathering methods to strengthen public health programs. He has more than 30 years of experience in medical epidemiology.

Dr. Buehler served at CDC from 1981–2002 as a commissioned officer in the U. S. Public Health Service. During that time he worked in general field epidemiology, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, and, for a brief period in 2001, CDC’s response to the anthrax attacks. He left CDC in 2002 but returned in 2009 to contribute to the surveillance of pandemic influenza. Then in 2010, he became the founding director of CDC’s Public Health Surveillance Program Office.

After departing CDC in 2002, Dr. Buehler became a research professor in the Epidemiology Department at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. At Emory, his research centered on improving public health surveillance and emergency preparedness capacities and on advancing the relatively new field of public health systems research.

Also while at Emory, Dr. Buehler was a consultant to epidemiology and emergency preparedness programs at the Division of Public Health of the Georgia Department of Human Resources. From 2006–2008, he served as the public health representative on the Georgia Health Information Technology and Transparency Advisory Board, where he focused on strengthening linkages between public health and healthcare by improving health information technologies.

Dr. Buehler received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of California–Berkeley and an MD degree from the University of California–San Francisco. He completed residency training in pediatrics at the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center in Portland and in preventive medicine at CDC. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and is board certified in both pediatrics and preventive medicine.