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The Formula for Better Health

How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own

Accelerating global health solutions

Peer-reviewed insights on public health threats and solutions.

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Meet Dr. Tom Frieden

Dr. Tom Frieden is a physician specializing in internal medicine, infectious diseases, public health, and epidemiology. He led New York City’s control of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and other health threats, directed the CDC during the Ebola epidemic, and helped start Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s global health philanthropy, particularly the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which has helped countries implement measures that will prevent more than 35 million deaths. His work has appeared in medical journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Lancet as well as media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Frieden is the founder and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a global health organization that accelerates action against the world’s deadliest health threats. The organization has partnered with countries around the world to support implementation of programs that have prevented more than 9 million deaths. Dr. Frieden’s forthcoming book, The Formula Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own (MIT Press, September 2025), distills four decades of public health leadership into a clear, actionable framework to extend healthy lives.

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The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own

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In the Media

Stay informed with the latest from Dr. Tom Frieden

Essays

Dismantling Public Health Infrastructure, Endangering American Lives

Essays

Transparency Misinterpreted: CDC Vaccine Policy and Conflicts of Interest

Appearances

Former CDC director Tom Frieden on the Trump administration’s relentless attack on public health

Featured Article or Talk

A Multi-institutional Outbreak of Highly Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Objective. — To investigate a multi-institutional outbreak of highly resistant tuberculosis and evaluate patient outcome. Design. — Epidemiologic investigation of every tuberculosis case reported in New York City. Setting. — Patients cared for at all public and nonpublic institutions from January 1, 1990, to August 1, 1993 (43 months).

Rapid DOTS expansion in India.

Since late 1998 the coverage of the DOTS strategy in India has been expanded rapidly. In both 2000 and 2001 the country probably accounted for more than half the global increase in the number of patients treated under DOTS and by early 2002 more than a million patients were being treated in this way in India. As a result, nearly 200 000 lives were saved.

The road to achieving epidemic-ready primary health care

Millions of avoidable deaths arising from the COVID-19 pandemic emphasise the need for epidemic-ready primary health care aligned with public health to identify and stop outbreaks, maintain essential services during disruptions, strengthen population resilience, and ensure health worker and patient safety. The improvement in health security from epidemic-ready primary health care is a strong argument for increased political support and can expand primary health-care capacities to improve detection, vaccination, treatment, and coordination with public health—needs that became more apparent during the pandemic.

7-1-7: an organising principle, target, and accountability metric to make the world safer from pandemics

Clear, universal performance standards for outbreak detection, reporting and control can improve accountability, save lives, and accelerate global readiness for future pandemics. For The Lancet’s Viewpoint, experts from Resolve to Save Lives propose 7-1-7 as a global target for timely response to infectious disease outbreaks: detecting a suspected outbreak within 7 days, reporting and initiating a response within 1 day, and mounting an effective early response within 7 days.

REPLACE: a roadmap to make the world trans fat free by 2023

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally, accounting for one in every three deaths,with nearly half of deaths in lower-income countries among people younger than 70 years. WHO has identified the elimination of industrially produced trans fat (an artificial product contained in partially hydrogenated oils) from the food supply as an effective and cost-effective intervention to prevent cardiovascular disease. Industrially produced trans fat causes an estimated 540 000 deaths each year worldwide. This chemical is toxic to people even at low levels of intake: trans fat clogs arteries and increases the risk of myocardial infarction and death. There

Improved hypertension care requires measurement and management in health facilities, not mass screening

Improved hypertension control can save millions of lives, but mass hypertension screening, a commonly used approach, is a barrier to progress. Although politically appealing, mass screening diverts resources from improving services in primary health care.

Unlocking health equity by eliminating copayments for essential antihypertensive medications

Hypertension kills more people than any other condition; approximately 80% of deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Only about 1 in 5 adults with hypertension worldwide and less than 1 in 10 in LMICs have their condition controlled. Adherence to antihypertensive medications increases control and decreases hospitalizations, strokes, heart attacks, and health care costs. Eliminating patient copayments for antihypertensive medications increases adherence and hypertension control. This powerful but underutilized strategy can advance universal health coverage and reduce economic hardship. Medication access with no out-of-pocket cost to patients is feasible and economically sound, but requires increased investment and careful

Fourth Time a Charm?—How to Make the UN High-Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Diseases Effective

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) cause three-fourths of the world’s deaths, with the number continuing to increase. More than 40% of NCD deaths are among people younger than 70 years, and the NCD epidemic is driven by preventable factors such as uncontrolled hypertension, tobacco and alcohol use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, air pollution, and limited health care access. Despite their massive toll on health and economies, NCDs remain underfunded, receiving only about 2% of development assistance for health.

Keep it simple: designing a user-centred digital information system to support chronic disease management in low/middle-income countries

Objective Implement a user-centred digital health information system to facilitate rapidly and substantially increasing the number of patients treated for hypertension in low/middle-income countries. Methods User-centred design of Simple, an offline-first app for mobile devices to record patient clinical visits and a web-based dashboard to monitor programme performance.

No U-turn on sodium reduction

High blood pressure is the world's leading modifiable risk factor for preventable mortality, causing more than 10 million deaths per year, more than the number of deaths from all infectious diseases combined. Sodium reduction has the potential to prevent millions of cardiovascular events and deaths, primarily through reducing blood pressure, and tested, scalable approaches exist to reduce sodium in commercially processed packaged foods. However, implementation has been limited by two problems: (a) academic controversy, with a few vocal authors mistakenly suggesting that low levels of sodium can increase cardiovascular mortality, and (b) the challenges of implementing population-wide sodium reduction interventions.