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EH MATTERS Faculty: Erika Garcia

Erika Garcia

Erika Garcia, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine

Websites: Faculty Profile

Areas of research:

• Examine the role of airborne environmental contaminants in the development of human disease, applying both traditional epidemiologic as well as advanced causal inference methodologies.

• Effects of early-life air pollution exposure on pediatric respiratory and metabolic health outcomes, including new-onset asthma, lung function, and childhood obesity.

• Advancing the application of causal inference methods in air pollution epidemiology and in studies of other environmental exposures.

• Occupational exposures and impact on workers’ health.

• Health effects of climate change related to environmental exposures, such as heat and pollution

EH MATTERS Internship description:

Research interns with the Garcia Research Group will gain training and mentoring in key areas such as science literacy, methods behind data analysis, preparation and communication of research, and principles underlying the conduct of Public Health research. Interns will work with Prof. Erika Garcia to develop and conduct a research project suited the student’s interests; for example, a project to identify patterns of air pollution exposure in Southern California children. Additionally, the internship will expose students to a variety of different potential careers in the Environmental Health field and offer valuable professional development.

Key publications

Garcia E, Berhane KT, Islam T, et al. Association of Changes in Air Quality With Incident Asthma in Children in California, 1993-2014. JAMA. 2019;321(19):1906-1915. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.5357

Garcia E, Urman R, Berhane K, McConnell R, Gilliland F. Effects of policy-driven hypothetical air pollutant interventions on childhood asthma incidence in southern California. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019;116(32):15883-15888. doi:10.1073/pnas.1815678116

Urman R, Garcia E, Berhane K, McConnell R, Gauderman WJ, Gilliland F. The Potential Effects of Policy-driven Air Pollution Interventions on Childhood Lung Development. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2020;201(4):438-444. doi:10.1164/rccm.201903-0670OC

Garcia E, Rice MB, Gold DR. Air pollution and lung function in children. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2021 Jul;148(1):1-14. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2021.05.006. PMID: 34238501; PMCID: PMC8274324. 

Rahman MM, McConnell R, Schlaerth H, Ko J, Silva S, Lurmann FW, Palinkas L, Johnston J, Hurlburt M, Yin H, Ban-Weiss G, Garcia E. The Effects of Co-Exposure to Extremes of Heat and Particulate Air Pollution on Mortality in California: Implications for Climate Change. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2022 Jun 21. doi: 10.1164/rccm.202204-0657OC. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35727303. 

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