Children’s Environmental Health
and Disease Research Center
The Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center began as a $8 million dollar grant jointly funded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Dartmouth led the multidisciplinary effort in collaboration with Stanford University, Harvard Medical School and others, and now participates in the NIH-funded Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program as a recently renewed cohort site.
Contact
Margaret Karagas
Dartmouth Trauma Interventions
Research Center
The Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center (DTIRC) pursues innovation in the services and treatment for children, youth, and families affected by adversity, trauma, and loss. Opportunities are available for trainees to participate in these projects.
Contact
Mary Kay Jankowski
Dartmouth Pediatric Clinical Trials Unit
We are funded by the NIH and participate in the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network (ISPCTN). ISPCTN is comprised of a Coordinating Center in Little Rock, ARK, 18 performance sites scattered throughout 18 states in the US, and an NIH leadership group. We were funded by NIH from 2016-2020 (Cycle 1) and are now in Cycle 2 funding through 2025.We are mandated to perform interventional clinical trials targeting children/youth with an emphasis on underserved and rural populations. Opportunities are available for trainees to participate in these projects.
Paul Palumbo
C. Everett Koop Institute
The mission of the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth is to advance health and well-being through research, education, and policy efforts to protect the public health and prevent disease. The Institute seeks to mitigate threats posed by the unhealthy promotion and use of consumer products, including tobacco, alcohol, and highly processed foods, as well as prescription drugs. Opportunities are available for trainees to participate in these projects.
Contact
Cecilia M. North
Pediatric Researchers at Dartmouth
Erin Barnett, PhD
Associate Professor, Child Psychologist
Department of Psychiatry
The Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Biography:
Dr. Barnette's work focuses on evidence-based service development and implementation for youth and their family who are affected by mental health and addiction. Her work also focuses on over-prescribing and deprescribing of psychotropic medications to vulnerable children.
Research Interests:
Mental health services for youth and families
Research Center Affiliation:
Dartmouth Trauma Interventions Research Center
Jennifer A. Emond, PhD, MS
Associate Professor
Biomedical Data Science
Department of Pediatrics
Biography:
Dr. Emond’s research examines the measurement and understanding of problematic media use in children and adolescents. She also has extensive experience researching child-directed food marketing in media. That includes measuring children's exposure to food marketing in naturalistic settings, understanding how food marketing exposure impacts children's eating behaviors, and measuring if child-directed food marketing complies with self-regulatory guidelines. Dr. Emond is extending that line of research to examine alcohol marketing within digital media.
Research Interests:
Child and adolescent media use, food and alcohol marketing to youth and young adults
Research Center Affiliation:
The Media & Health Behaviors Lab at Dartmouth College
Diane Gilbert-Diamond, ScD
Associate Professor, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Epidemiology
Department of Medicine and Department of Pediatrics
Biography:
Dr. Gilbert-Diamond's work focuses on genetic susceptibility to obesogenic appetitive traits and eating behaviors in response to environmental factors such as the hyperpalatable food environment and food advertising.
Research Interests:
Child Obesity Prevention
Research Center Affiliation:
The Media & Health Behaviors Lab at Dartmouth College
David C. Goodman, MD, MS
Professor
The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Department of Pediatrics
Biography:
David Goodman is a physician, health services researcher, and educator with a longstanding interest in the causes and consequences of health care variation. In his early years, his studies focused on the relationship of physician supply to population outcomes, and applied the findings to public policy development. More recently, his research portfolio investigates unwarranted variation in the use of neonatal intensive care.
Research Interests:
Causes and consequences of provider variation in newborn and NICU care
Research Center Affiliation:
Goodman Perinatal Projects
Samantha House, DO, MPH
Associate Professor and Pediatric Hospitalist
Department of Pediatrics
The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Biography:
Dr. House is a pediatric health services researcher interested in exploring variations in healthcare delivery. In particular, she is interested in considering how we can "safely do less" -- meaning reduce healthcare services that aren't actually needed or evidence-based. Such care can increase costs, bring families back to care unnecessarily, and cause patient harm. Dr. House is also beginning to think about how this care influences healthcare's impact on the environment -- which is huge! Dr. House serves as the Vice Chair for Quality and Innovation for Dartmouth Health Children's and is very interested in considering how we can effectively deliver high-quality pediatric care across our rural region.
Research Interests:
Measuring and de-implementing low-value pediatric care, quality improvement, bronchiolitis, impact of healthcare on climate
Research Center Affiliation: NA
Margaret R. Karagas, PhD
Professor & Chair of Epidemiology
Department of Epidemiology
Biography:
Professor Karagas is the inaugural chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine and director of the Centers for Molecular Epidemiology and Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research at Dartmouth College. As part of her deep commitment to interdisciplinary training, Professor Karagas collaboratively established an innovative, cross-disciplinary postdoctoral and graduate program in the quantitative biomedical sciences (QBS) that integrates epidemiology, bioinformatics, and biostatistics and mentors diverse investigators at all stages of their career. Her research interests encompass interdisciplinary studies that seek to illuminate the causes of human disease by investigating emerging environmental exposures, host factors, and mechanisms -- that impact health from infancy to adult life.
Research Interests: NA
Research Center Affiliation:
Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center
JoAnna Leyenaar, MD, PhD, MPH
Professor of Pediatrics & The Dartmouth Institute, Vice Chair of Research
Department of Pediatrics
The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Biography:
Dr. Leyenaar and her research team work to advance child health and healthcare quality by analyzing health systems data, working directly with children and families to understand what's important to them, and implementing and evaluating child health programs. Her work has been published in many high-impact journals including JAMA, JAMA Pediatrics, and Pediatrics, and has been publicized by the New York Times, Washington Post, Seattle Times, and other media outlets.
Research Interests:
rural-urban disparities in child health, care of youth with mental health conditions at acute care hospitals, transitions of care, children with medical complexity
Research Center Affiliation:
Leyenaar Lab
Juliette Madan, MD, MS
Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry
Department of Pediatrics
Department of Epidemiology
The Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Sciences
Biography:
Dr. Madan is the clinical director of the NHBCS and leads longitudinal molecular epi studies of human microbiome as well as focused cohort studies of the microbiome in high-risk populations (CF, Neuroimmune conditions). Learn More: https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/epidemiology/profile/juliette-madan-md/
Research Interests:
Human microbiome, neuropsychiatric outcomes
Research Center Affiliation:
Dartmouth Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center
ECHO Dartmouth
PING Dartmouth (Psychiatry, Immunology and Neurology Group)
Auden McClure, MD, MPH
Associate Professor
Department of Pediatrics
The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Department of Medicine
Biography:
Dr. McClure is currently involved in clinical outcomes research related to our adult and pediatric obesity medicine program as well as our culinary medicine program. She is PI for two clinical trials assessing the effectiveness of teaching kitchen-based lifestyle programs. Dr. McClure is a mentor to residents and fellows in QI practicum projects in the preventive medicine residency and MPH program.
Research Interests:
Pediatric obesity, food as medicine, food marketing, quality improvement
Research Center Affiliation:
Center for Digestive Health
Dartmouth Cancer Center
Teaching Kitchen Collaborative
Jennifer Meijer, PhD, RD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Department of Medicine
Department of Pediatrics
Department of Epidemiology
Biography:
Dr. Jen Meijer's research laboratory explores how our ability to metabolize the food we eat is influenced by disease states, such as obesity and metabolic diseases. Her lab specializes in studying the acute response to meals, and assessing the dynamics of metabolism by metabolomics and respiratory exchange ratios. In the Weight and Wellness Center, Dr. Meijer leads research efforts to assess the clinical impact of new obesity management practices. She practices as a Registered Dietitian within the Weight and Wellness Center.
Research Interests:
Nutrition, metabolism, obesity
Research Center Affiliation:
Center for Digestive Health
James D Sargent, MD
Scott M. and Lisa G. Stuart Professor of Pediatric Oncology
Department of Pediatrics
Biomedical Data Sciences
Biography:
Dr. Sargent is a general pediatrician with wide ranging research interests. Most of his research has involved observational studies in which he captured media and marketing exposures and linked them with adolescent risk behaviors. To learn more, please visit: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q3nQg3wAAAAJ&hl=en
Research Interests:
Marketing, adolescent substance use, behavioral epidemiology, tobacco control
Research Center Affiliation:
C Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth
Susanne Tanski, MD, MPH
Section Chief and Vice Chair of General Pediatrics, Associate Director of Koop Institute
Department of Pediatrics
Biography:
Dr. Tanski’s current research includes tobacco use among adolescents and young adults, tobacco cessation for patients with cancer, media/marketing influences on adolescent drinking and smoking, and the effects of corporate interests on health.
Research Interests:
Tobacco Control, vaping, adolescent risk behaviors (tobacco use, alcohol use), mental health
Research Center Affiliation:
C Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth
Patience Toyin-Thomas, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics
The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Biography:
Dr. Toyin-Thomas is a general pediatrician and pediatric health services researcher with an overall goal to improve children's access to and quality of healthcare and improve health outcomes for children. As an early-career health services researcher, her research focuses on disparities to care access among Medicaid children, a historically economically disadvantaged population that is particularly vulnerable to adverse health effects. In her dissertation, she examined the impact of Medicaid HMO programs, specifically mandatory Medicaid HMO programs, on access to health care and utilization of health services and the health status of children enrolled in Medicaid over a 19-year period (2000-2018). Dr. Toyin-Thomas also examined racial and ethnic disparities in health among this population as well as disparities in care for children with special health care needs. Currently, her research examines state-level Medicaid data to explore the drivers of health disparities of access and utilization, particularly among more vulnerable populations of women and children.
Research Interests:
Access to care for children, Health equity
Research Center Affiliation:
NA
Peter F. Wright, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
Department of Pediatrics
Department of Medicine
Biography:
Dr. Farnum Wright's work focuses on understanding the immune response with different means of antigen presentation.
Research Interests:
Viral immunity
Research Center Affiliation:
Lee Lab
Ackerman Lab
If you are a pediatrics researcher and would like to be added to this page, please contact the Department of Pediatrics Research Navigator, Julie Doherty.