Denise Chrysler, JD
Director, Mid-States Region
Network for Public Health Law
1415 Washington Heights
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Ms. Chrysler served as the Director of the Network for Public Health Law’s Mid-States Region for over twelve years. She recently retired from this position and now serves as a Senior Advisor to the Network. She has significant background in public health law with specific expertise regarding collection, sharing, and protection of health and personal information. Previously, she co-chaired the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Public Health Law Subcommittee, which focuses on collection and use of data for public health surveillance, investigation, and intervention. She served on the Legal and Regulatory Workgroup for the Digital Bridge, which is a public-private partnership working to ensure the health of our nation by establishing effective bidirectional data exchange between health care and public health. For almost two years, she served as a legal consultant to CDC to assist with development of a legal framework to expand data sharing capacity for Patient Centered Patient Outcomes Research (PCOR).
Ms. Chrysler received the 2019 Roy J. Manty Distinguished Service Award for her contributions to public health in Michigan. She has served on her local board of health for 12 years. In 2017, Ms. Chrysler was appointed by Michigan’s governor to serve on the Michigan Public Health Advisory Council, which was created by Executive Order after the Flint water crisis, to advise the Governor to improve the structure of Michigan’s public health system and address current and emerging public health issues. Ms. Chrysler leads trainings for public health practitioners, to support and empower local public health agencies in using their powers to protect the public from disease and environmental hazards.
Prior to joining the Network for Public Health Law, Ms. Chrysler was employed by the State of Michigan. As a state attorney, Ms. Chrysler served on the State Health Department’s Steering Committee and Privacy and Security subcommittee to develop health information exchange, and was the lead author of the legal sections of Michigan’s e-Health Initiative Conduit to Care Report. For over 27 years, she provided legal services to the state health department regarding public health powers, programs, and services – serving as the public health legal director, the director of the Office of Legal Affairs, the department’s Chief Privacy Officer, the regulatory affairs officer, the Freedom of Information Act coordinator, a member of the department’s Institutional Review Board, and as an assistant attorney general. Ms. Chrysler earned a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Ms. Chrysler was appointed to the Committee in 2020 and serves on the Subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality and Security.