Prof. Itamar Grotto is a Public Health Physician and Professor of Epidemiology. He was the Director of Public Health Services (2007-2017) and the Associate Director General (2017-2021) of the Israel Ministry of Health. Between 2018 and 2021 he was a Member of the Executive Board of the World Health organization (WHO).
In his capacities in the Israel Ministry of Health, he led major conceptual and operational changes in the preventive services, including the establishment of the Israel Nation Immunization Registry and inclusion of nine new vaccines in the Israeli Public Vaccination Schedule. He also led a National Health Promotion program aimed to prevent obesity and related diseased. During his time in service, the fields of Environmental Health and Food Safety underwent through major regulatory reforms. In 2013, Prof. Grotto led the response of the Israeli MoH to the silent transmission of wild poliovirus, which resulted in polio re-eradication from Israel with no clinical cases. In 2017-2021 he developed the fields of Digital Health and Cyber Security in the Israel Health System. He led the Medical Cannabis reform in Israel. Prof. Grotto established “Health Care Israel” which was created by Israel’s Ministry of Health in to deliver life-saving and cost-saving healthcare innovation, technology and expertise to the world – Government to Government (G2G). During the Covid-19 outbreak in Israel, Prof.
Grotto took a major role in the development of national strategy and lead the integrative and operative aspects of the emergency response of the Israeli government. Prof. Grotto is also an active member of the School of Public Health in Ben-Gurion University in Israel. His main research activities are in the fields of infectious diseases epidemiology, environmental health, health promotion and public health policy development. Prof. Grotto has authored more than 210 scientific publications. In his capacity as a member of the Executive Board of WHO he led to the Executive Board resolution on “The Highest Attainable Standard of Health for Persons with Disabilities” in January 2021.
