Michael Weitzman

Dr. Weitzman’s career has been devoted to explicating and ameliorating environmental and social influences on children’s health via research, translation of research into public and clinical policy, and training the next generation of pediatric and public health practitioners and researchers. He has been a professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at three universities as well as serving as the Director of Maternal and Child Health for the City of Boston.  Most recently he was Professor of Pediatrics and Environmental Medicine at the New York University Grossman Medical School, where he served as the Chair of The Department of Pediatrics and Professor of Global Public Health at the New York University School of Public Health. A pediatrician, he has published more than 200 peer-reviewed research papers concerning a diverse array of children’s health problems including lead poisoning, prenatal and secondhand smoke exposure, environmental influences on childhood asthma, influences on academic performance, the roles of maternal and paternal mental health in multiple aspects of child health and functioning and racial, multiple child nutritional problems and economic disparities in child health and health services.

For the past decade his research has largely, although not exclusively, focused on the epidemiology and adverse air pollution and health effects of hookah (water-pipe) and e-cigarette use both in adults and children. He also has a long history of serving in an advisory capacity to various federal agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC’s) Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Child Health Protection Committee, as well as several of its Lead Advisory Committees and the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Tobacco Product Scientific Advisory Committee. In 2005 he worked with the Department of Justice as a medical expert witness in the federal racketeering case against Philip Morris and he has served in a similar capacity in multiple cases involving childhood lead poisoning. For his work related to child secondhand smoke exposure he was awarded the first ever EPA Child Environmental Health Advocate Award, and he has been the recipient of the Children’s Environmental Health Network’s Research Award, and of both the Academic Pediatric Association’s Research and Mentoring Awards. In 2017 Dr. Weitzman was the recipient of the single most prestigious honor in American Pediatrics, the John Howland Award, from the American Pediatric Association.

Research Interests

• Environmental influences, including prenatal and secondhand smoke exposure and lead exposure, among others, on multiple aspects of child physical and mental health problems
• Social influences on child health and development
• Health and health care inequities of children
• The epidemiology and adverse environmental and health effects of use and secondhand exposure to hookahs and e-cigarettes
• Child nutrition: iron deficiency, Vitamin D deficiency, food insecurity, breastfeeding, the metabolic syndrome
• Child and parental (both maternal and paternal) mental health problems
• Children’s oral health and such influences on it as prenatal and secondhand smoke exposure, heavy metal exposure, and prolonged breast feeding
• The epidemiology and effects of adolescent and young adult use of alcohol, cocaine and marijuana

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