Rate My Professor Benjamin Ewald

Dr. Benjamin Ewald serves as Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle, affiliated with the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing. He earned his Bachelor of Medicine in 1982, Master of Medical Science in Epidemiology in 1996, and PhD in Community Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Newcastle. Following completion of the Family Medicine program in 1992, Ewald practiced as a general practitioner in Sydney and then for a decade in Alice Springs at the Congress Aboriginal medical service, where he applied epidemiological methods to community health challenges amid high disease burdens. Since 1998, he has been a general practitioner in private practice in Newcastle while teaching in the epidemiology master's program, coordinating courses on communicable disease epidemiology and research protocol design, and instructing in the undergraduate medical curriculum.

Ewald's research focuses on diagnostic test accuracy in general practice, including ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and B-type natriuretic peptide for heart failure. He has contributed to community-based physical activity studies and leads a randomized controlled trial on physical activity promotion initiated in 2011. Additional interests include public health advocacy for activity-promoting environments, environmental health risks, accelerometer data analysis for physical activity, integration of objective measures into clinical practice, and health system data analysis for cycling safety. He has authored chapters such as "Climate Change and Human Health" (2022) and "B-type natriuretic peptide: A new diagnostic tool for congestive heart failure" (2011), along with numerous journal articles, including "Health risks from indoor gas appliances" (2022), and conference papers on physical activity dose-response and general practice waiting room studies. Ewald has secured grants exceeding $1.3 million, notably an NHMRC project on exercise physiologist counseling efficacy ($896,589, 2011-2013).