Interim Health Officer of Public Health – Seattle & King County

Dr. Eric Chow

Eric J. Chow, MD, MS, MPH is the Interim Health Officer and the Chief of Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Immunization for Public Health – Seattle & King County. He is a medical epidemiologist and is board-certified in internal medicine, pediatrics and infectious diseases. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington.

Dr. Chow joined Public Health – Seattle & King County in 2022 as the Chief of the Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Immunization Section – the team that conducts investigations and surveillance for the 65+ notifiable communicable diseases and develops immunization strategies for King County. In this role, he works on various responses and investigations for vaccine preventable diseases, healthcare associated infections, foodborne and enteric diseases, zoonotic and emerging infectious diseases. Prior to arriving at Public Health – Seattle & King County, Dr. Chow served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer within the Influenza Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta where he led field investigations into influenza, measles, Ebola and the initial cases of SARS-CoV-2. He supported Public Health – Seattle & King County’s response to the first COVID-19 outbreak in a long-term care facility and helped characterize the initial cases of multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children in the United States.

Dr. Chow holds a Doctor of Medicine (MD) and Master of Public Health (MPH) from Eastern Virginia Medical School and a Master of Science (MS) from Stanford University. He completed his residency training in combined internal medicine and pediatrics at Brown University and fellowship at the University of Washington. He has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and scientific articles on topics including healthcare associated respiratory viral infections, extrapulmonary complications of influenza, COVID-19 outbreak responses, description of MIS-C cases in the United States, respiratory virus epidemiology in homeless shelters, clinical features of mpox during the 2022 global outbreak and epidemiology of non-toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae.