Caroline McElnay

Caroline Ann McElnay is a medical officer in New Zealand. She was the director of public health for the New Zealand Ministry of Health from 2016 to 2022.

Biography McElnay, one of seven children, grew up on a farm in Bushmills, Northern Ireland. She studied medicine at Queen's University Belfast and then public health at the University of Manchester.

She was appointed director of population health for Hawke's Bay District Health Board. She advocated for health equity in the region and in 2014 she published a major report on the subject.

McElnay was appointed to the role of director of public health at the Ministry of Health in 2016. She chaired the Pandemic Influenza Technical Advisory Group, which advised the ministry on matters concerning the control of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. She was later appointed immunisation clinical lead at Health New Zealand and a member of the Ministry of Health's public health advisory committee. In May 2025 she was announced as chief health officer for the Victoria State Government and took up that role in August. She was reappointed to the New Zealand public health advisory committee and appointed as its chair in November 2025.

Honours and awards

In the 2023 New Year Honours, McElnay was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order, for services to public health.

Personal life McElnay later moved with her husband to Napier in 1995.

Publications

McElnay, C., & University of Manchester. (1991). The epidemiology of hip fractures in the elderly and the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation as a preventive strategy. Manchester: University of Manchester. McElnay, C., & Hawke's Bay District Health Board. (2014). Health inequity in Hawke's Bay.