Eric Chow

Associate Professor Eric Chow is a senior epidemiologist and biostatistician based at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC) at The Alfred Hospital. He heads the Health Data Management and Biostatistics Unit at MSHC and an Associate Professor at Central Clinical School, Monash University.

A/Prof Chow completed his PhD at the Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales in 2014. He holds three Master's qualifications in Applied Science (Bioinformatics), Public Health and Biostatistics. He was awarded an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship to support his postdoctoral training at MSHC/Monash (2015-2018).

A/Prof Chow's research program aims to improve treatment, prevention and control of sexually transmitted infections (STI), with a particular focus on gonorrhoea and human papillomavirus (HPV).

Gonorrhoea is one of the most common STI and it is a global public health threat because the rates of infection are increasing at an alarming rate, and it is becoming increasingly resistant to the last first-line antibiotics. A/Prof Chow's research program has developed a new paradigm of gonorrhoea transmission. He has led the investigation of gonorrhoea transmission via saliva and kissing, which have significant impacts on reinforcing current safe sex messages and interventions. He is currently undertaking an NHMRC-funded multicentre randomised controlled trial using mouthwash as a preventive strategy for oropharyngeal gonorrhoea. His research program has also focused on the evaluation of the national school-based HPV vaccination program. His work has demonstrated the public health benefits of the female HPV vaccination program in Australia (introduced in 2007) for females and heterosexual males. He is currently evaluating and monitoring the clinical and public health benefits of the universal HPV vaccination (introduced in 2013) for males. His work on HPV has helped to inform HPV guidelines abroad.

A/Prof Chow also communicates closely with the Government and community-based organisations in order to improve health and wellbeing for the Australian population.

A/Prof Chow has a strong track record with >160 peer-reviewed publications including first or senior author publications in Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet HIV, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases and Journal of Infectious Diseases. He holds an H-index of 28 and his papers have been cited over 2000 times. A/Prof Chow is an Associate Editor for the journals Sexual Health (2016-) and BMC Infectious Diseases (2017-). He has been on the organising committee for the International Union Against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI) Asia-Pacific Congress held in Okayama, Japan (2016) and Auckland, New Zealand (2018). He has been an external reviewer for NHMRC Project Grants (2016-) and the Health and Medical Research Fund in Hong Kong (2015-).

MPH5020 Introduction Epidemiology and Biostatistics (2014-2015)

MPH5041 Introductory Biostatistics (2015)

MPH5213 Research Methods (2014)