Members

Health Officer

Dr. Charles Harris has served as Hamilton County’s Health Officer since 1986. Board certified by the American Academy of Family Medicine; Dr. Harris recently retired as a family practice physician in Cicero. He still holds an active license to practice in the State of Indiana.

“Family practice really fit my personality because it offered me a great deal of versatility.” Dr. Harris explains. “Plus, it allowed me to walk through life with people in some of their most joyful and darkest times. You can’t put a dollar figure on that.”

Dr. Harris is a Ben Davis High School graduate. He attended Indiana University and completed a flexible internship at West Suburban Hospital in Oak Park, Illinois. He completed his family practice residency at Southern Illinois University.

Dr. Harris was tapped as the county’s Health Officer shortly after he started practicing medicine. As a Health Officer, he is responsible for enforcing all applicable public health laws, ordinances and regulations and providing public health guidance to the various divisions of the department.

“My role as health officer has forced me to look at health through the lens of prevention instead of treatment,” Dr. Harris says. “What can we do to keep people healthy? How do we keep them out of doctors’ offices? It’s an important and often overlooked way of practicing medicine.”

Dr. Harris is married. He has three grown children and one grandson. In his off time Dr. Harris enjoys participating in health missions in Latin America, gardening and bee keeping. He also owns and operates a tour bus company called Chuck’s Wagon Tours.