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Dockery has studied links between air pollution and health issues for 30 years
March 19, 2009
Dr. Douglas W. Dockery
Dr. Douglas W. Dockery, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Harvard University, will deliver the 2009 Winona B. Vernberg Lecture in Public Health on March 25.
The lecture, scheduled for 11:45 am in Room 114 of the Public Health Research Center, honors the longtime dean of the Arnold School of Public Health who died in December. The presentation is titled "Measuring Efficacy of Air Pollution Control."
"I thought it would be especially appropriate, since she was an environmental health scientist, that we invite a prominent environmental health researcher for 'her' lecture this year," said Interim Dean Dr. Tom Chandler.
Dockery has studied air quality and health issues for 30 years. His work has focused on the potential for polluted air to cause a range of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, asthma and other respiratory ailments.
His research has been at the center of the debate regarding what levels of particular pollutants are dangerous, and what limits the federal government should impose on sources of emissions to protect public health.
Dockery's current research is attempting to more specifically identify the chemical and physical characteristics of combustion-related particles responsible for the adverse health effects.
Other studies also are attempting to understand the pathways of acute cardiovascular events associated with air pollution exposure and to link these epidemiologic finding with toxicological studies of particle effects. He also is assessing the health benefits of air pollution controls.
Dockery earned a bachelor’s degree in physics ('69) from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in meteorology ('72) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At Harvard, he earned a master’s ('74) and a Sc.D ('79), both in environmental health.
He worked for the Environmental Protection Agency before he joined the Harvard faculty in 1979.
