When Mayor Bloomberg asked Thomas Frieden to become the city’s health commissioner four years ago, he said he agreed because the mayor was willing to take on the tobacco industry.

Many are wondering what big-ticket proposals Dr. Frieden, the architect of the city’s smoking ban and one of the mayor’s most trusted commissioners, is planning for his second term.

Considering Mr.Bloomberg’s proclivity for taking on public health issues and his 20-point victory in last week’s election, the possibilities for action seem wide open.

If Dr. Frieden plans to push another headline-grabbing proposal, most acknowledge that now is a good time to do so: The uproar over the smoking ban has faded in most corners of the city, and the mayor is starting his second term with soaring popularity.

In an interview, Dr. Frieden, who shares Mr. Bloomberg’s data-driven approach to public policy, said he would focus on core issues like diabetes and obesity and work to ensure that New Yorkers know their HIV status as well as they know their subway stops. He also praised Mr. Bloomberg for his recent $25 million commitment to provide electronic medical records for public hospitals and clinics.

Yet even in dealing with core issues, Dr. Frieden has a love-it-or-hate-it approach that has led some to label him a progressive public health leader and others to view him as overly intrusive.

In July, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene proposed creating a database to track New Yorkers with diabetes and log their blood glucose levels. The registry would be the first such list for non-contagious diseases. It will be voted on next month by the public health board.

Although Dr. Frieden has said the registry would help reduce the ill effects of diabetes for sufferers, some view it as an infringement on patient privacy. “The fact is, there is a lot of Chicken Little lurking in Thomas Frieden,” one newspaper editorial proclaimed over the summer.

Dr. Frieden insists that the database would be accessible only to health department officials and pointed out that diabetes rates are soaring.

“People are going to have their legs amputated,” he said. “They are going to go blind, they are going to be on dialysis, and we’re supposed to just say,’Well, no, that’s not the role of public health to deal with an epidemic because it happens not to be fed by a bacteria.”

Dr. Frieden’s ambitious tactics have spilled into other areas as well. He has tangled with the City Council and has pushed public health initiatives that his predecessors shied away from – like needle exchange programs and widespread condom distribution.

Between mid-June and mid-October the department shipped out more than 6 million condoms to community organizations, according to an agency spokesman, Andrew Tucker.

Dr.Frieden’s goal is to make condoms available throughout the city in places like movie theaters and barbershops. He keeps a bowl of them in his office and the agency’s Web site contains an easy-to-find condom order link.

He is also waging a war on trans fat. A couple of months ago, he sent a letter to restaurant owners and food suppliers asking them to stop using partially hydrogenated oil because it increases the risk of heart disease.

When asked whether he would try to push the trans fat issue further in a second term, he said: “It’s the only area that is getting worse … obesity and with it diabetes is getting worse.”

Dr. Frieden is credited with helping to quash New York City’s tuberculosis problem in the early 1990s and then using the same model to save hundreds of thousands of lives in India, where he led World Health Organization TB program.

The head of a small nonprofit called the Commission on the Public’s Health System, Judy Wessler, said Friday that Dr. Frieden has systematically excluded the community from public health decisions and that he has been a disappointment. She said she doesn’t know what he’ll do in term two because he doesn’t consult with grassroots groups.

Yet his proponents are many. Governing magazine recently named him one of the public officials of the year. Council Member Christine Quinn, the chairwoman of the health committee, has butted heads with him in the past but said he’s “exactly the kind of model we want in a health commissioner.”

She said that while Dr. Frieden will always be remembered for the smoking ban,that she had “no doubt”his second term will be marked by many significant accomplishments.

“He is not a guy who seems comfortable in the position of resting on his laurels,” she said.