Leonardo Trasande

Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP is an internationally renowned leader in environmental health.  His research focuses on identifying the role of environmental exposures in childhood obesity and cardiovascular risks and documenting the economic costs for policy makers of failing to prevent diseases of environmental origin in children proactively.  He also holds appointments in the Wagner School of Public Service and NYU’s College of Global Public Health.  He is perhaps best known for a series of studies published in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism that document disease costs due to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the US and Europe of $340 billion and €163 billion annually, respectively. Dr. Trasande leads one of 35 centers across the country as part of the National Institute of Health’s Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes program.  He is leveraging the NYU Children’s Health and Environment Study as well as another birth cohort to examine phthalates, bisphenols, organophosphate pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their effects on fetal as well as postnatal growth and early cardiovascular and renal risks.  These two cohorts are part of a larger initiative nationally to identify preventable and environmental factors that influence child health and disease. After receiving his bachelor, medical and public policy degrees from Harvard, he completed the Boston Combined Residency in Pediatrics and a legislative fellowship in the Office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.