Jeremy Kark

Jeremy David Kark, MD, PhD was Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, Hadassah Medical School and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jeremy received his MD in 1968 and his MPH in 1974 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and went on to receive his PhD in 1977 in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. Professor Kark's contributions to the fields of public health and epidemiology were broad, and focused primarily on the social, behavioral, and biological determinants of coronary heart disease and other chronic illnesses, and his work over the past 50 years made significant advances in our understanding of these areas.

Biography

Jeremy David Kark

Jeremy David Kark was born in 1943 in Pholela, rural Zululand, at the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, where his parents, Professor Sidney Kark and Dr Emily Kark, established the first community-oriented primary care (COPC) program. After several years in Zululand, the Kark family moved to Durban, where Jeremy attended Westville Boys' School. Jeremy spent his childhood years in Durban as an outstanding student and athlete, excelling in various sports. In July 1958, the Kark family (Sidney, Emily, Carol, Jeremy and William Kark) left apartheid-ruled South Africa and moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Jeremy graduated high school at Chapel Hill High School, North Carolina, USA, and continued to be active in sports, serving as captain and representative of his teams. He also enjoyed travelling, collecting stamps, reading, and studying world literature, mathematics, and physics. Jeremy was the captain of the Westville Boys' High cricket and rugby teams and represented Chapel Hill High and North Carolina in freestyle swimming. As a child, he enjoyed reading and broadening his horizons, and in addition to mathematics, physics, and the sciences in which he excelled, he loved history, literature, English, adventure books, and more, and collected stamps from all over the world. Jeremy graduated high school at Chapel Hill High in 1960.

Sidney and Emily Kark later immigrated to Israel and established the Masters in Public Health (MPH) program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A decade later, they established the International MPH program, which has since trained around 1000 students from nearly 100 countries. In 1960, after graduating from high school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the USA, he joined his family in Israel and enrolled in the Medical School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jeremy received his MD in 1968 and his MPH in 1974 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Jeremy went on to receive his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Between the late 1960s and early 1980s, Jeremy served as Head of the Public Health (Army Health) Branch. In 1980, Jeremy joined the Department of Social Medicine, The Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Faculty of Medicine as an academic and served as its acting Head of Department between 1989 and 1990. In 1993, Jeremy was appointed as Full Professor of Epidemiology and served between 1991 and 2008 as Head of The Epidemiology Unit of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center. He also served as the Director of the International MPH program during part of this period.

Professor Jeremy Kark was an outstanding scientist and gifted expert in his field and beyond, a doctor with exceptional scientific commitment, enthusiasm, and integrity, whose work substantially advanced the areas of epidemiology and public health globally. Jeremy was known for his scientific rigor, discipline, and precision and for his scientific integrity. He won multiple competitive grants from many prestigious national and international funding organizations and published over 250 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet and others.

Jeremy trained and mentored dozens of masters and doctoral students throughout his career and taught thousands of medical students, MPH students, and others. Amongst his various international and national appointments, Jeremy Kark was a Visiting Professor at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center, Tufts University, Boston, and a Visiting Scientist and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Health Policy Research at Stanford University.

Jeremy dedicated time to multiple advisory bodies, such as those of the Ministry of Health, Advisory Committee on Study of Environmental Pollutants, the Ministry of Health Chief Scientist Research Grant Committee (2003–2010), Ministry of Health Chief Scientist, Chair Epidemiology and Public Health Research Grants Section (2002–2008), the National Council on Women’s Health, Committee on Cardiovascular Diseases, the National Heart Council, Ministry of Health, (1995–2001), the Steering Committee, Israel Center for Disease Control, Ministry of Health, the Chief Scientist’s Steering Committee, Ministry of Health (1987–2003), the National Health Information Advisory Council and the Advisory Committee to the Ministry of Health on infectious diseases and vaccines. He served as Chairman of the specialist examination board, Public Health, Scientific Board of the Israel Medical Association and on multiple advisory committees in the IDF Medical Corps (1976–1989), including the Committee on Substance Abuse and many others.

Jeremy David Kark passed away in May 2018, leaving a loving wife, Professor Ruth Kleiner Kark, whom he met over 58 years ago, three loving children, Ronit Kark, Salit Kark and Guy Kark, and seven grandchildren.

The Jeremy Kark Prize for Academic Excellence reflects Jeremy’s endless striving for excellence and integrity in science. It was recently established and donated by his wife Ruth Kark and will be awarded annually to an outstanding student of the International Masters of Public Health (IMPH) program of the Hebrew University and Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine. The prize will be awarded to a student with outstanding academic achievements in both their coursework and Masters thesis. This prize commemorates Jeremy’s contribution to the IMPH program, which his parents, Professor Sidney and Dr Emily Kark, had established. Jeremy mentored many IMPH students, served as its program director, and taught in the program for over 30 years, training hundreds of students from around the world.

Scientific Publications

Selected peer-reviewed publications:

• Kark, Jeremy D.; Lebiush, Moshe; Rannon, Lotte (1982-10-21). "Cigarette Smoking as a Risk Factor for Epidemic A(H1N1) Influenza in Young Men". New England Journal of Medicine. 307 (17): 1042–1046. doi:10.1056/nejm198210213071702. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 7121513.
• Kardinaal, A.F.M.; van't Veer, P.; Kok, Fj; Ringstad, J.; Gómez-Aracena, J.; Mazaev, V.P.; Kohlmeier, L.; Martin, B.C.; Aro, A. (1993-12). "Antioxidants in adipose tissue and risk of myocardial infarction: the EURAMIC study". The Lancet. 342 (8884): 1379–1384. doi:10.1016/0140-6736(93)92751-e. ISSN 0140-6736.
• Kark, Jeremy D. (1995-04-19). "Iraqi Missile Attacks on Israel". JAMA. 273 (15): 1208–10. doi:10.1001/jama.1995.03520390068035. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 7707629.
• Salomaa, V.; Riley, W.; Kark, J. D.; Nardo, C.; Folsom, A. R. (1995-03-01). "Non Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus and Fasting Glucose and Insulin Concentrations Are Associated With Arterial Stiffness Indexes : The ARIC Study". Circulation. 91 (5): 1432–1443. doi:10.1161/01.cir.91.5.1432. ISSN 0009-7322.
• Sinnreich, Ronit; Friedlander, Yechiel; Luria, Myron; Sapoznikov, Dan; Kark, Jeremy (2000-07-28). "Inheritance of heart rate variability: the kibbutzim family study". Human Genetics. 107 (1): 96. doi:10.1007/s004390050019. ISSN 0340-6717.
• Sinnreich, R; Kark, J D; Friedlander, Y; Sapoznikov, D; Luria, M H (1998-08-01). "Five minute recordings of heart rate variability for population studies: repeatability and age-sex characteristics". Heart. 80 (2): 156–162. doi:10.1136/hrt.80.2.156. ISSN 1355-6037.
• Kark, JD; Selhub, J; Bostom, A; Adler, B; Rosenberg, IH (1999-06). "Plasma homocysteine and all-cause mortality in diabetes". The Lancet. 353 (9168): 1936–1937. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(98)05381-1. ISSN 0140-6736.
• Kark, Jeremy D.; Selhub, Jacob; Adler, Bella; Gofin, Jaime; Abramson, Joseph H.; Friedman, Gideon; Rosenberg, Irwin H. (1999-09-07). "Nonfasting Plasma Total Homocysteine Level and Mortality in Middle-Aged and Elderly Men and Women in Jerusalem". Annals of Internal Medicine. 131 (5): 321–30. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-131-5-199909070-00002. ISSN 0003-4819. PMID 10475884.
• Guallar, Eliseo; Sanz-Gallardo, M. Inmaculada; Veer, Pieter van't; Bode, Peter; Aro, Antti; Gómez-Aracena, Jorge; Kark, Jeremy D.; Riemersma, Rudolph A.; Martín-Moreno, José M. (2002-11-28). "Mercury, Fish Oils, and the Risk of Myocardial Infarction". New England Journal of Medicine. 347 (22): 1747–1754. doi:10.1056/nejmoa020157. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 12456850.
• Daniali, Lily; Benetos, Athanase; Susser, Ezra; Kark, Jeremy D.; Labat, Carlos; Kimura, Masayuki; Desai, Kunj K.; Granick, Mark; Aviv, Abraham (2013-07-24). "Erratum: Corrigendum: Telomeres shorten at equivalent rates in somatic tissues of adults". Nature Communications. 4 (1). doi:10.1038/ncomms2976. ISSN 2041-1723.
• Twig, Gilad; Yaniv, Gal; Levine, Hagai; Leiba, Adi; Goldberger, Nehama; Derazne, Estela; Ben-Ami Shor, Dana; Tzur, Dorit; Afek, Arnon; Shamiss, Ari; Haklai, Ziona; Kark, Jeremy D (2016). "Body-Mass Index in 2.3 Million Adolescents and Cardiovascular Death in Adulthood". New England Journal of Medicine. 374 (25): 2430–2440. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1503840. PMID 27074389.

A detailed list of publications can be found here: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=0P8QjJUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

References

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