Joav MerrickIn 1991 he was appointed the Medical Director of Health Services in Israel under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services responsible for the medical care of over 10,000 persons with intellectual disability in more than 60 residential care enters and 60 community related residential care facilities (hostels, protected apartments) and also another 20,000 persons with intellectual disability living at home, but provided community services in about 400 places around Israel.

From 1998 he was the director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, an academic virtual research institute on children, the disabled and the intellectually disabled in Israel affiliated with the Office of the Medical Director, Health Services, Ministry of Social Affairs and the Department of Pediatrics, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Mount Scopus Campus, Jerusalem, Israel.

He was on the Editorial Board of the "International Journal on Child Abuse and Neglect" from 1984-94 and continues to perform referee work. He is currently on the editorial boards of International Journal of Religion, Disability and Health, Internet Journal of Pediatrics and Neonatology, and the International Nursing Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability. He is the Editor in Chief of the International Journal on Disability and Human Development, the journal TSWJ-Holistic Health and Medicine, the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, and the journal Child Health and Human Development. Read More Read Less