Professor
School of Medicine
Dept. of Public Health Sciences
University of California
Davis, CA 95616-8638
iher@ucdavis.edu
530-752-3025 Fax: 530-752-3239
 
Creative Achievements
• Showed that increased calcium intake decreases maternal blood lead level during pregnancy
• Demonstrated that occupational exposure to arsenic has a synergistic effect with smoking, so that quitting smoking reduces the carcinogenic impact of arsenic exposure, and reducing workplace exposures reduces the impact of smoking on lung cancer
• Identified and quantified bias from methods used in survival analysis when a large number of events occur within single time intervals
• Developed methods to use epidemiologic data more effectively in environmental risk assessment
• Found that vinyl miniblinds were a major source of lead exposure in children identified as having low level lead poisoning
• Showed that blood lead could be contributing to spontaneous abortion in some populations
• Quantified the proportion of smoking-related leukemias that is attributable to benzene in cigarette smoke
 
Current Research Interests
• Application of methods that enable appropriate control for intermediate variables that are also confounders; specific work in controlling the healthy worker survivor effect
• Development of methods for analysis in studies of pregnancy outcomes
• PCB's and other organochlorines effects on prenatal growth & development, including the immune system
• Lead exposures during pregnancy and their effects on the mother and the fetus
• Environmental factors in the etiology of autism
• Arsenic exposures and cardiovascular and reproductive outcomes
 
Key Publications
• Bell EM, Hertz-Picciotto I, Beaumont JJ (2001). A case control study of pesticides and fetal death due to congenital anomalies. Epidemiology 12:148-156
• Hertz-Picciotto I (2000) The evidence that lead increases the risk of spontaneous abortion. Amer J Indus Med 38:300-309.
• Hertz-Picciotto I. 1995. Epidemiology and quantitative risk assessment: A bridge from science to policy. Amer J Pub Health 85(4):484-91.
• Korte J, Hertz-Picciotto I, Schulz M, Ball LM, Duell E. 2000. The contribution of benzene to smoking-induced leukemias. Environ Health Perspectives 108:333-39.
• Hertz-Picciotto I. 1999. What you should have learned about epidemiologic data analysis. Epidemiology 10:778-83.
 
Teaching
• Advanced methods for epidemiologic data analysis
 
Honors
• Abraham Lilienfeld Student Prize Paper, awarded by the Society for Epidemiologic Research for best dissertation, June 1988
• NAS (National Academy of Sciences) Young Investigator Program Awardee, Environmental Health in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine July 1997
• Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society, elected in 1998
• McGavran Award for Excellence in Teaching, awarded by the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2001
• Lifetime National Associate of the National Academies; awarded by the NAS and NRC (National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council), 2002-
 
Public and University Service
• California Governor's Carcinogen Identification Committee for Proposition 65 (2002-)
• NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health) National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Cancer Research Methods Team (2002-)
• U.S. - Vietnam Workshop on Effects on the Environment and Health of Agent Orange in Vietnam (2002)
• Member, NAS/IOM Committee on Agent Orange and Vietnam Veterans (1998)
• Chair, NAS/IOM Committee on Agent Orange and Vietnam Veterans (2000, and currently: 2002)
• Member, Scientific Advisory Board, U.S. EPA
• Member, Board of Scientific Counselors, NTP (National Toxicology Program)Director, Reproductive Epidemiology Program at UNC Chapel Hill
• Deputy Director, Center on Environmental Health & Susceptibility, UNC Chapel Hill
• President, International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (2002-2003)
• Board of Editors: American Journal of Epidemiology; Epidemiology; Human and Ecological Risk Assessment