Dr. Leonardo Trasande

Dr. Leonardo Trasande

New York University

Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP is an internationally renowned leader in children’s 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 appointment sin the Wagner School of Public Service an 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 UIS and Europe of $340 billion and €163 billion annually, respectively.  Dr. Trasande leads one of 35 centres 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 foetal 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 Paediatrics and legislative fellowship in the Office of Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton.  Prior to coming to NYU, he completed fellowship training in environmental paediatrics.  For five years he also was a Lead Investigator in one of the original (Vanguard) locations of the National Children’s Study, and Deputy Director for the largest (eight location) Study Center spanning a region from upstate New York to central New Jersey.