Dr. Clayton Chau

Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, NHHA

Clayton Chau was the former Health Care Agency Director and County Health Officer for the County of Orange, California, the 6th largest county in the nation, during the pandemic from 2020 – 2023. He oversaw public health, mental health & recovery, environmental health, correctional health, employee health, public guardian, and emergency medical services with over 2900 staff and a budget of over $1 Billion. During the pandemic, Dr. Chau led the County in its COVID-19 response efforts. He created a number of initiatives to respond to the crisis of our time: the mega sites for mass testing and vaccination, the Latino Health Initiative, the Vaccine Taskforce, the Othena apps digital solution, Operation Independence which achieved countywide 70% vaccination by July 4, 2021, the Office of Population Health & Equity, the Equity in OC Initiative, the Office of Suicide Prevention, and the Your Health Matters OC – a biweekly talk show on social media platforms. As part of the Board of Directors for CalOptima Health, a local health plan, he initiated the Street Medicine program in response to the increasing deaths of the unhoused individuals in Orange County.

He previously served as the Chief Clinical and Strategy Officer for MindOC, a nonprofit entity which he co-founded to support BeWell OC, a private/public/faith based/academic coalition that aims to transform the mental health system. He was the Regional Executive Medical Director of Southern California Region Providence Health System, the third largest health system in the country; Senior Medical Director for Health Services at L.A. Care Health Plan, the largest nonprofit health plan in the nation, responsible for behavioral health, care management, utilization management, disease management, etc. In that capacity, Dr. Chau was actively involved in the development of the LA County Whole Person Care Program. He was also the Co-Principal Investigator for a multi-year Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Innovation grant in Transforming Clinical Practice. He started his career in the public sector working for 13 years for Orange County Behavioral Health Services where he was the Director of the Center of Excellence in Education, Training, Research and Advocacy for Reducing Health Disparities. There, he developed the first county funded bi-directional behavioral and physical health Integration program as well as the Model of Community Outreach and Education. Dr. Chau was on the Board of Directors for the California Institute for Behavioral Health Solutions for over a decade bringing the cultural and equity lens to the organization that employs strategies rooted in co-design to increase inclusivity and social justice in the mental health system.

He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and the Director for the Transcultural Psychiatry Curriculum at UC Irvine School of Medicine. He was also a lecturer for the UCLA School of Public Health. Appointed by the 23rd US Secretary of Health and Human Services, he served on the Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee from 2017-2020. Dr. Chau obtained his MD degree from the University of Minnesota, PhD in Clinical Psychology from Chelsea University and Master of Arts in Sustainability Leadership from Claremont Lincoln University. He completed his psychiatry residency at UCLA/San Fernando Valley followed by a fellowship with the National Institute of Mental Health in psychoneuroimmunology focusing on substance abuse and HIV. During his residency he was also selected for the American Psychiatric Association Mead Johnson Fellowship in Community Leadership.