About
Howard Frumkin is professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, where he served as dean from 2010-2016. He led the “Our Planet, Our Health” initiative at the Wellcome Trust in London from 2018-2019. Previously, he directed the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR) and served as special assistant to the CDC Director for Climate Change and Health, from 2005-2010. Dr. Frumkin was professor and chair of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Emory Medical School from 1990-2005.
Dr. Frumkin is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist and epidemiologist. His research interests include public health aspects of the built environment, climate change, energy policy and nature contact. He has served on the boards of the Bullitt Foundation, the Seattle Parks Foundation, the Washington Global Health Alliance, the American Public Health Association, the US Green Building Council, the Children and Nature Network, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, among others, on several NASEM and IOM committees, on the Steering Committee of the Planetary Health Alliance (Harvard University) and on advisory committees to the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (Harvard University), HERA (Health Environment Research Agenda for Europe, INSERM and ISGlobal), the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education (Columbia University), the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health (George Mason University), the European Centre for Environment and Human Health (University of Exeter), the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health and the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (University of Toronto).
He is the author, co-author or editor of over 300 scientific journal articles, chapters and books, including textbooks on general environmental health (Environmental Health: From Global to Local); planetary health (Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves and Planetary Health: Safeguarding Human Health and the Environment in the Anthropocene); and the built environment (Making Healthy Places: A Built Environment for Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability).
Dr. Frumkin is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and of the Washington State Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Collegium Ramazzini and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He loves cycling, kayaking and hiking. He is married to global health journalist Joanne Silberner and has two children — Amara, a pediatrician; and Gabe, a labor lawyer.
