Michael Yedidia

Michael J. Yedidia (Ph.D., Brandeis University; M.P.H., Yale University) is a Professor and Senior Medical Sociologist at the Rutgers University Center for State Health Policy and the Institute for Health. Trained in sociology and public health, his research focuses on the prevention of childhood obesity, population health disparities, health professions education, care models for serving vulnerable populations, patient perspectives on health and illness, and quality improvement. He co-leads the New Jersey Child Health Study, which follows panels of low-income children, as well as a cohort of public schools to assess the impact of aspects of the food and physical activity environment on weight status. A current focus is the impact of pandemic-related school closures on obesity and the mitigating effects of child-targeted, federal emergency food assistance. Dr. Yedidia is also collaborating on a study examining the effects of providing supportive housing services on health care use among homeless adults. In the past, he served as the national program director for Evaluating Innovations in Nursing Education, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s initiative to support evaluation of interventions addressing the nurse faculty shortage. His research has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, among others. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers, Dr. Yedidia was a senior health services researcher at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and taught medical sociology, health policy, and research methods at the Department of Sociology and the Medical Education Program at Brown University.