The creation of the new Faculty of Health Sciences in 1974 brought with it the concept of community orientation, and as a consequence, a close relationship between medicine and epidemiology. In 1975, Professor Moshe Prywes, the founder of the Faculty and first dean of the medical school, invited Professor Lechaim Naggan to create a department of epidemiology, within the framework of the medical school. The first epidemiology and biostatistics courses started in 1975-76, specifically targeted at medical students, and years later at students of the school of nursing and physiotherapy.
A US-Israel bi-national research program on "Maternal and infant transmission of hepatitis B infection" helped to recruit Prof. Jacob Berman, a well known biostatistician from the Minnesota School of Public Health. In 1979, Prof. John Goldsmith, from University of California at Berkley joined our faculty and developed the field of environmental and occupational epidemiology. In 1977, the department of Health Services Evaluation merged with the department of Epidemiology and the new department of Epidemiology and Health Services Evaluation was created.
The new department continued to recruit faculty from different areas of interest, Lily Neumann (biostatistician), Shimon Weitzman, who had a joint appointment in the department of medicine (diabetes and clinical epidemiology), Dina Pilpel (health services research), Batia Sarov (infectious disease epidemiology), David Stone, from Glasgow (pediatric epidemiology), Ilana Shoham-Vardi (perinatal epidemiology) and Drora Fraser (infectious disease and nutritional epidemiology). Amalia Levy (perinatal epidemiology), Ella Kordysh (environmental and occupational epidemiology), Ilana Belmaker (regional officer of Health , MOH). Faculty members joining the department in the last few years include Danit Shahar (nutritional epidemiology), Iris Shai (nutritional epidemiology), Itamar Grotto (infectious disease epidemiology), Michael Friger (biostatistics) and Dr. Natalya Bilenko (maternal and child health, clinical appointment).
The research activities of the department included, among others, grants from NICHD-NIH, US-Israel Binational Foundation, NIAID-NIH, AID-MERC, the Israel Science Foundation, the Germany-Israel Binational Science Foundation, European Commission 5th Framework Program, the Israel Cancer Research Fund, The Lederle-Praxis Biologicals, Pasteur Merieux Connaught Vaccines, Belgian Administration for Development Cooperation and the Charles R. Bronfman Foundation, Aventis-Pasteur, WHO, Israel Ministry of Health, and the National Institute of Health Policy and Health Services Research.
The regular teaching activities include basic epidemiology and biostatistics courses for medical, nursing, physiotherapy, paramedics, and clinical laboratory technicians. Of particular importance is the involvement of the department in teaching epidemiology to medical students at various levels: 1) the basic descriptive epidemiology and biostatistics in the first two years of the curriculum, 2) epidemiology of the various body systems (cardiovascular, diabetes, respiratory, etc) in the 3rd. year, 3) research methods in epidemiology, clinical epidemiology and biostatistics, and principles of writing research proposals during the 4th year. Graduate student programs given by the department started in 1985 after the Israeli Council for Higher Education approved the master and doctoral programs in epidemiology and in 2000 the MPH program. Currently over 40 courses are available to graduate students in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Public Health topics. In addition to these regular teaching activities, the department developed and organized short international courses in epidemiology and biostatistics for professionals from Israel and other countries, sponsored by the Ministry of Health, and courses on community health, including family health and community diagnosis, co-sponsored by the World Health Organization. Graduate student programs given by the department started in 1985 after the Israeli Council for Higher Education approved the master and doctoral programs in epidemiology and in 2000 the MPH program. Currently over 40 courses are available to graduate students in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Public Health topics. In addition to these regular teaching activities, the department developed and organized short international courses in epidemiology and biostatistics for professionals from Israel and other countries, sponsored by the Ministry of Health, and courses on community health, including family health and community diagnosis, co-sponsored by the World Health Organization
