Helene McDowell

Helene McDowell, MS is the Director of Health Equity Programs & Outreach for PSW with more than 20 years of experience in social work, clinical trials, and research/academia. She has a proven record of positive partnership with physician and community leaders and more than 10 years of experience in non-profits supporting health equity via systems change.

Charlene Wong

Charlene Wong, MD MSHP is a primary care physician and policymaker who has led health transformation and partnerships in local, state and federal systems. She is Executive-in-Residence at the Common Health Coalition that brings public health and health care together to improve health. She has co-founded Seen & Heard, a national, non-profit organization to ignite change with young people to through advocacy, education, and partnership.

Dr. Wong served in federal and state government from 2020-2025, first as Chief Health Policy Officer for COVID-19 and the inaugural Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. She then served as the Senior Advisor for Health Strategy to the CDC Director, where she led several of the agency’s health priorities and a collaborative approach to integrate public health and health care. 

Dr. Wong is on faculty at Duke University and launched the North Carolina Integrated Care for Kids (NC InCK) as Executive Director in 2020, an innovative model serving ~100,000 Medicaid-insured children in central North Carolina by integrating services across health care, educational, and social sectors (e.g., schools, housing, food, early care and education, child welfare). She is a primary care pediatrician, specializing in adolescent and young adult medicine.

Dr. Wong's research and policy training includes fellowships at the CDC and in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. She received her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain scholar and completed her medical and research training at Emory University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Washington, Seattle Children’s Hospital, University of Pennsylvania, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband and two daughters.