Risk Communication: What Every Public Health Practitioner Needs to Know

Conference date:
August 6, 2002

Conference presented by:
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Speakers:
Thomas Burke, PhD, MPH
Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH
Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

About the Speakers
Thomas A. Burke is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, with joint appointments in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and in the School of Medicine's Department of Oncology. He is also co-director of the Johns Hopkins Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute. His research interests include environmental epidemiology, the evaluation of community exposures to environmental pollutants, the assessment and communication of environmental risks and the application of epidemiology and health risk assessment to public policy. He is a principal investigator for the Pew Environmental Health Commission, which works to revitalize the national infrastructure for environmental health. Dr. Burke is the chair of the Advisory Committee to the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is particularly interested in urban health and environment.

Prior to his appointment at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Burke was deputy commissioner of health for the State of New Jersey. He has also served as assistant commissioner for occupational and environmental health at the New Jersey Department of Health, and as director of the Office of Science and Research in the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Dr. Burke received his PhD in epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania, his MPH from the University of Texas and his BS from Saint Peter's College.

In addition to being both a pediatrician and an epidemiologist, Lynn Goldman is a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where her areas of focus are environmental health policy and children's environmental health. Her appointment is in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, with a joint appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

In 1993, Dr. Goldman was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve as assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances (OPPTS). For more than five years, she served in that position, where she was responsible for the nation's pesticide, toxic substances and pollution prevention laws. Before joining the EPA, Dr. Goldman served in several positions at the California Department of Health Services, most recently as head of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control. She has conducted public health investigations on pesticides, childhood lead poisoning and other environmental hazards. Dr. Goldman has a BS in Conservation of Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an MD from the University of California, San Francisco. She completed pediatric training at Children's Hospital, Oakland, California.