Joshua Ehrlich, MD, MPH

I'm an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. I'm also a Visiting Scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I completed my undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, studying anthropology and Spanish. I received my M.D. from Cornell University, and a Master's in Public Health (epidemiology) from Columbia University. I then completed a residency in ophthalmology at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, followed by a clinical fellowship in glaucoma and anterior segment disease and a research fellowship, both at the University of Michigan.

My research is interdisciplinary, drawing on epidemiology, demography, health services research, and clinical insights to characterize and address the vast impact of vision impairment on health, disability, and wellbeing. I am particularly interested in the influence of vision and multisensory impairments on cognitive, psychosocial, and physical health in older adults. I also work in global health, co-directing the Jerome Jacobson International Program at the Kellogg Eye Center and as a faculty member at the Center for Global Health Equity. My global health work, principally in Africa and South Asia, is focused on ophthalmic epidemiology, research collaborations, capacity building, and systems strengthening.

I've received a K23 Career Development Award from the National Eye Institute that is focused on patient-centered outcomes research to improve the measurement of visual disability. I am also a Co-Investigator for various population-based panel studies of older adults funded by the National Institute on Aging, including the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) and the Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia for the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI-DAD).

I am a founder of the SENSE Network, an international network supporting research examining the role of sensory functioning on health and aging. I am also an invited member of the Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health, the Vision Loss Experts Group (a technical advisory panel to the WHO and the Global Burden of Disease project), the Center for Vision and Population Health, and the editorial board of Ophthalmic Epidemiology.