Healthy Air, Healthy Brains: Emerging Evidence Streams and Advancing Air Pollution Policy to Protect Children's Health and Project TENDR Overview

This Grand Rounds webinar was originally presented on June 12, 2019. This webinar is part of an ongoing series of educational presentations by experts on issues that focus on current and emerging aspects of pediatric and reproductive environmental health. These presentations focus on the impact of environmental exposures to chemicals on human health at the vulnerable stages of in utero and pediatric development. A number of topics will be included – all of them relevant to questions of exposure and health effects, with consideration of risk reduction. Speakers will include physicians and PhD subject matter experts, as well as individuals with expertise in areas such as home assessment, laboratory analysis, and risk communication.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this presentation, participants should be able to:

1. Describe two key mechanisms of neurological effects of air pollution
2. Identify air pollutants that have been associated with neurodevelopmental effects
3. Describe policy options to reduce air pollution exposure

Presented By

 Melanie Marty, PhD
Assistant Deputy Director
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
California EPA
PEHSU Region 9
 
Melanie Marty, PhD, is currently working as a retired annuitant at the California EPA, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, where she is filling a role as Assistant Deputy Director for Scientific Programs. Dr. Marty retired from CalEPA in 2016. Her last position was as Acting Deputy Director for the Science Division at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, California Environmental Protection Agency. In that role, Dr. Marty oversaw the scientific activities of the division. She has worked at OEHHA for over 30 years. She previously served as Assistant Deputy Director (2012-2015), and Chief of the Air Toxicology and Epidemiology Branch (1998 – 2012). Her work has largely been in risk assessment of environmental contaminants, including developing guidance to adequately address susceptible subpopulations such as children. Dr. Marty has served on a number of EPA peer review committees and was the Chair of the U.S.EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee from 2001-2009. Dr. Marty was also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis, Department of Environmental Toxicology from 2009 to 2018, where she taught a course on risk assessment of toxicants and contributed to other teaching activities. Dr. Marty received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis in Pharmacology and Toxicology in 1983.

 

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, MPH, PhD
Director, Environmental Health Sciences Core Center
Professor and VC for Research, Department of Public Health Sciences
University of California, Davis
PEHSU Region 9
 
Dr. Hertz-Picciotto is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Public Health Sciences and the MIND Institute at UC Davis, and Director of the NIH-funded Environmental Health Sciences Core Center. She has over 300 publications examining environmental chemicals, nutrition, and gene-by-environment interactions in relation to pregnancy, the newborn, and early child development. Her research has identified over a dozen modifiable risk factors for autism that are amenable to intervention. She has chaired Institute of Medicine expert panels on Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange, and on Breast Cancer and the Environment, served on numerous federal and California state advisory committees, and was President of two major epidemiology societies. Hertz-Picciotto has taught epidemiologic methods on four continents and mentored over 70 doctoral students, post-doctoral trainees and international scholars. In 2011, she received the Goldsmith Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. Four years ago, she co-founded and is Co-Executive Director of Project TENDR: Targeting Environmental Neuro-Developmental Risks, a consortium of scientists, health professionals and advocacy organizations, to move the science on chemicals and neurodevelopment into action that protects vulnerable brains in early life.
 

Disclaimer: This material was supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and funded (in part) by the cooperative agreement FAIN: 5 NU61TS000237-05 along with the American College of Medical Toxicology and funded (in part) by the cooperative agreement FAIN: 5U61TS000238-05 from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

Acknowledgement: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports the PEHSU by providing partial funding to ATSDR under Inter-Agency Agreement number DW-75-95877701. Neither EPA nor ATSDR endorse the purchase of any commercial products or services mentioned in PEHSU publications.

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