Rachel Levine

Levine was born on October 28, 1957, and is originally from Wakefield, Massachusetts.[6][7] She is Jewish and grew up attending Hebrew school.[8] She earned her high school diploma from Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Massachusetts.[9]

Levine graduated from Harvard College and the Tulane University School of Medicine and completed a residency in pediatrics and fellowship in adolescent medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, New York.[10]

Levine had a fellowship at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital from 1988 to 1993[10] where she trained in pediatrics.[11] After moving from Manhattan to central Pennsylvania in 1993,[10] she joined the staff at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. During her tenure there, she created Penn State Hershey Medical Center's adolescent medicine division and eating disorders clinic. She was in charge of the latter when she was nominated for the position of Pennsylvania Physician General in 2015.[10]

In 2015, Levine was nominated by Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Wolf to be Pennsylvania's Physician General.[3] In her capacity as Physician General, Levine signed an order that allowed law enforcement officers to carry the anti-overdose medication naloxone. She has credited the drug with saving the lives of almost 1,000 opioid users who had overdosed.[3] She served as Physician General until 2017.

In July 2017, Governor Wolf appointed Levine as Secretary of Health,[12] and she was unanimously confirmed.[3] In January 2021, then-President-elect Joe Biden announced that he is nominating Levine to be the Assistant Secretary for Health. If confirmed, she will be the first openly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.[4][5]

COVID-19 pandemic

See also: COVID-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania, COVID-19 pandemic in Philadelphia, and Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on long-term care facilities

Levine briefing COVID-19 measures with Gov. Tom Wolf at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in June 2020

During 2020 and until January 23rd 2021, Levine led the public health response on COVID-19 in Pennsylvania as the state secretary of health.[11] She worked closely on a daily basis with the FEMA director and led a daily press briefing.[12]

Levine removed her mother from a personal care home, after creating a policy whereby nursing homes throughout the Commonwealth would readmit residents testing positive for COVID-19 after they were declared healthy enough to leave the hospital. Levine has stated that personal care homes (as opposed to nursing homes) do not fall under the jurisdiction of her own agency.[13]

Levine has served as a board member of Equality Pennsylvania, an LGBT rights organization.[3]

Levine has two children, David and Dayna.[14][15] She transitioned in 2011. Levine and her ex-wife, Martha Peaslee Levine,[16][15] divorced in 2013.[17][3]

• List of transgender political office-holders

• Fassbender, Laura; Zander, Gwendolyn B.; Levine, Rachel L. (July 2019). "Beyond rescue, treatment, and prevention: understanding the broader impact of the opioid epidemic at the state level". The American Journal of Managed Care. 25 (13 Suppl): S239–S240. PMID 31361432.
• Ashburn, Michael A.; Levine, Rachel L. (October 1, 2017). "Pennsylvania State Core Competencies for Education on Opioids and Addiction". Pain Medicine. 18 (10): 1890–1894. doi:10.1093/pm/pnw348. PMID 28339890. S2CID 205292295.
• Mahr, Fauzia; Farahmand, Pantea; Bixler, Edward O.; Domen, Ronald E; Moser, Eileen M.; Nadeem, Tania; Levine, Rachel L.; Halmi, Katherine A. (May 2015). "A national survey of eating disorder training: National Survey of Eating Disorder Training". International Journal of Eating Disorders. 48 (4): 443–445. doi:10.1002/eat.22335. PMID 25047025.

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• Pennsylvania Secretary of Health profile