After years of turnover, it appears there is finally stability in the role of the city’s top health official, after Michael Totoraitis was confirmed in early July to a four-year term as Milwaukee health commissioner.
“I’m really proud of the work we’ve done,” Totoraitis said. “Nationally, there’s been a large move out of public health, but we’re pretty fully staffed and it helps us to respond to the needs and challenges of our city.”
Totoraitis was originally appointed interim health commissioner by Mayor Cavalier Johnson in May 2023, who then reappointed him for a full term.
His appointment became final after a unanimous vote during the July 2 meeting of the Common Council. He is the city’s sixth health commissioner since 2018.
Totoraitis “has completed some thoughtful realignment of the department, and he is both engaged with, and focused on, community health in Milwaukee,” said Jeff Fleming, a spokesman for the mayor.
Journey to becoming a health commissioner
Born at St. Joseph Hospital in Milwaukee, the 38-year-old Totoraitis lives in the city with his wife and two children. He earned his Ph.D. in public and community health from the Medical College of Wisconsin and bachelor’s degrees in criminology and law studies from Marquette University.
Totoraitis worked for several years as a community organizer for Safe & Sound, which unites residents, youths and law enforcement to increase safety in neighborhoods.
When Katie Sanders became executive director of Safe & Sound in 2014, Totoraitis was supervising the Community Partners Program, which is no longer active but was integrated into the organization’s other programming.
Sanders described him as a good listener and empathetic leader.
“He was creative, thoughtful, has a great sense of integrity and the ability to individualize his approach to his team,” said Sanders, who left Safe & Sound in 2019 to become Milwaukee Public Museum’s first chief planning officer.
Constance Kostelac is the director of the Division of Data Surveillance and Informatics at the Comprehensive Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
She first met Totoraitis when she was the research director for the Wisconsin Department of Justice and both were working in support of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission. She said Totoraitis worked directly with community and justice system partners, focusing on violence prevention strategies.
“It was apparent he had knowledge on a wide range of public health issues, as well as both academic and practitioner experience related to public health and the intersection with public safety and the criminal justice system,” Kostelac said.
Totoraitis also worked for the city’s Office of Violence Prevention, which has been renamed the Office of Community Wellness and Safety, and served as director of health data and evaluation for the health department before being appointed interim health commissioner.
Looking back at a busy year
Totoraitis said one of his main priorities has been lead poisoning prevention. He said lead testing of children 72 months and younger is down significantly since 2004 and dipped again in recent years, partially because of the pandemic and also the national recall in 2021 of a lead testing device.
“A lot of children were not being tested because clinics were closed or people were not going into the clinic,” Totoraitis said. “Kids not going in and machines really limited the number of kids getting screened.”
The rate of lead testing increased from 2022 to 2023, progress he hopes continues. One reason for the increase has been a collaboration between the health department, Milwaukee Health Care Partnership and Children’s Wisconsin.
In terms of COVID-19, which was the primary concern during the tenures of the three previous health commissioners before Totoraitis, it has been recategorized to a virus in the category of diseases that also includes the flu. Although the city no longer runs COVID-19 testing sites, it does provide free immunization services at its walk-in clinics.
It’s also still tracking COVID-19 through wastewater samples from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, or MMSD.
“We use that as a measure of how the virus is tracking through the community,” Totoraitis said. “Right now our data just got updated and it’s very very low, kind of what we saw at this time last year.”
Looking ahead to first full term
Among the many goals Totoraitis has over the next few years is to continue the multiyear process of obtaining accreditation for the health department from the Public Health Accreditation Board, or PHAB.
The PHAB accreditation process involves an assessment of a health department’s capacity to carry out essential public health services and its foundational capabilities.
“We’ve never been accredited,” he said. “The PHAB sets standards for all health departments to meet.”
He is also focused on continuing work funded through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants to address health disparities and improve public health that expire in 2025 and 2026.
“I want to ensure we are doing what we need to do to continue this work beyond the life of the grant and also retain our staff,” Totoraitis said. “For the next four years, one of my priorities is ensuring that our budget is funding the work that we need to do.”
Totoraitis also emphasized the health department’s commitment to continue building a framework to address racism as an issue that impacts health.
“We’re training all of our staff to ensure that they know what racism as a public health issue means and how to work with our clients,” he said.
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