Allison A. Appleton

Dr. Allison Appleton is a Social Epidemiologist, with postdoctoral training in cardiovascular epidemiology and epigenetics. She is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University at Albany College of Integrated Health Sciences. Her interdisciplinary research blends theory and methods from epidemiology, the social sciences, environmental health, and molecular epidemiology to understand how psychosocial and environmental exposures become biologically embedded to affect health and health disparities, both within and across generations.

Dr. Appleton is the Principal Investigator of the Albany Infant and Mother Study (AIMS), a prospective birth cohort of racial/ethnic diverse and socially disadvantaged pregnant women and their babies that seeks to understand how psychosocial stress and toxicant exposures during pregnancy jointly contribute to birth and child health outcomes, as well as the epigenetic alterations that might help explain the associations. In other longitudinal cohorts of children and adults, she studies the association between adverse childhood experiences and positive psychosocial factors in relation to later life cardiovascular risk. In all her work, Dr. Appleton considers the impacts of exposures occurring during critical or sensitive periods of development in relation to health and disease over the life course.

Dr. Appleton teaches epidemiology methods courses, including EPI 501, EPI 502, EPI 601 and an elective in Cardiovascular Epidemiology.

Research Interests

• Social determinants of health
• Environmental exposures
• Maternal and child health
• Cardiovascular health
• Epigenetics

Learn more about Dr. Appleton's work:

• Google Scholar