Public Health Prof. Gabriel Chodick

Epidemiology and database research

The integrated system of state-mandated health providers in Israel has facilitated the linking of inpatient, outpatient, hospital, ambulatory care, pharmaceutical, and laboratory data. Prof. Chodick uses the wealth of real-world data for policymaking and guidelines to increase well-being and improve prevention efforts. His focus has been to study the use of new drugs, study the long-term adverse outcomes of cancer, metabolic disorders, and vascular events, and assess the economic and medical burden of diseases. During the pandemic,

Prof. Gabriel Chodick, PhD, MHA, recently joined as on-campus faculty of the School of Public Health, after heading the Maccabitech Institute for Epidemiology and Database Research at Maccabi Healthcare Services, the second largest HMO in Israel. He earned M.Sc . and Ph.D. degrees in Epidemiology from Tel Aviv University, where he also completed his Master’s in Health Administration. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the School of Public Health, UNC at Chapel Hill and completed a twoyear post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda. Prof. Chodick has authored or co-authored over 350 articles in peer-reviewed journals, primarily in the area of pharmacoepidemiology and big data analytics. His major areas of interest include outcome research using real-world data, drug adherence, vaccine effectiveness, and preventive medicine.

Prof. Chodick has led observational studies that have given immediate findings to decision makers such as the safety of ACE-I therapy, and the effectiveness of COVID vaccines and anti-viral therapies. Chodick’s lab’s goal is to further develop the use of healthcare electronic records, registries, and other data resources to improve the quality of healthcare delivery and clinical innovation.

Public Health

Prof. Dani Cohen

Epidemiology of infectious diseases and vaccinology

Prof. Cohen’s research has contributed to the development of Shigella conjugate vaccines, which are currently the leading Shigella vaccine candidates. Prof. Cohen studies the immune response following natural exposure to Shigella species or vaccination with Shigella candidate vaccines. His group has developed immunological correlates of protection against shigellosis and are currently quantifying them in observational and vaccine studies facilitated by competitive grants, including support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Prof. Cohen, PhD, MPH, is at the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine in the School of Public Health, former head of the School of Public Health (TAU SPH) and the Chair of the Middle East Consortium for Infectious Diseases Surveillance (MECIDS). Prof. Cohen has served for many years on the National Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Infectious Diseases and is currently a member of working groups on the COVID-19 immunization program in Israel. Prof. Cohen is an appointed member of the WHO COVID-19 working group for selection of candidate vaccines for the WHO solidarity vaccine trial. He received several awards for outstanding contributions to research.

https://en-med.tau.ac.il/profile/dancohen

A longstanding expertise developed by Prof. Cohen and his group in Israel in different populations at risk for diarrheal diseases and shigellosis are currently applied in studies for young children in low- and middle- income countries severely affected by shigellosis. Prof. Cohen is involved in the preclinical development of a conjugate vaccine against brucellosis and in the performance of seroepidemiological studies of selected vaccine preventable diseases.