Francine Laden

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Biography

Dr. Francine Laden is an environmental epidemiologist, who has authored approximately 300 peer-reviewed publications focusing on environmental epidemiology of chronic diseases, including cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular disease. Her research has or is concentrated on the following categories of exposures: air pollution (from ambient and occupational sources), persistent organic pollutants (POPs; organochlorines), secondhand smoke, temperature, and the contextual environment (e.g. built environment and green spaces). She is specifically interested in the geographic distribution of disease risk, incorporating geographic information system technology into large cohort studies to explore risk factors such as the built environment and indicators of socioeconomic status, as well as air pollution. She has published key papers on the association of ambient particulate matter and all cause and cardiovascular mortality in the landmark Harvard Six Cities Study and the Nurses’ Health Study and on the association of diesel exhaust exposures and lung cancer mortality in the trucking industry.

Dr. Laden is a Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Associate Chair of the Department of Environmental Health and the Director of the NIH/NIEHS T32 Program for Training in Environmental Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. She received her ScD in Epidemiology and MS in Environmental Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Laden is a past member of the EPA Science Advisory Board and Past President of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology.

Education and Training

• MS,
  Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
• ScD,
  Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Awards and Honors

• John Goldsmith Award, 2023
  International Society of Environmental Epidemiology
• Marianne Wessling-Resnick Memorial Mentoring Award, 2022
  Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Committee for Concerns for Women Faculty
• John A. Rock Scholar honorarium, 2019
  Louisiana State University of Public Health
• Alice Hamilton Lectureship, 2011
  Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Committee for Concerns for Women Faculty
• Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute, 2002
  Young Investigators Award
• Sigma Xi, Associate Member, 1998 - 2023
  National Scientific Honor Society
• National Research Award in Cancer Epidemiology, 1994 - 1996
  National Cancer Institute

Publications

• Fine particulate matter and nonaccidental and cause-specific mortality: Do associations vary by exposure assessment method?

  Klompmaker JO, James P, Kaufman JD, Schwartz J, Yanosky JD, Hart JE, Laden F. Environ Epidemiol 2025

• Neighborhood socioeconomic disparities in cancer incidence following a hypothetical intervention to increase residential greenspace cover in the UK Biobank cohort.

  Liu K, Iyer HS, Lu Y, Laden F, Song M, Roscoe C. Environ Res 2025 Feb 01

• Validation of self-reported hypertension in young adults in the US-based Growing Up Today Study (GUTS).

  Chen J, Hart JE, Fisher NDL, Laden F. PLoS One 2025

• Childhood exposure to air pollution, noise, and surrounding greenness and incident hypertension in early adulthood in a US nationwide cohort-the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS).

  Chen J, Hart JE, Fisher NDL, Yanosky JD, Roscoe C, James P, Kaufman JD, Laden F. Environ Res 2024 Dec 15

• Measuring Environmental and Behavioral Drivers of Chronic Diseases Using Smartphone-Based Digital Phenotyping: Intensive Longitudinal Observational mHealth Substudy Embedded in 2 Prospective Cohorts of Adults.

  Yi L, Hart JE, Straczkiewicz M, Karas M, Wilt GE, Hu CR, Librett R, Laden F, Chavarro JE, Onnela JP, James P. JMIR Public Health Surveill 2024 Oct 11