Katherine Moon
Profiles

Katherine Moon, PhD

Assistant Professor, Environmental Health - Boston University School of Public Health

(617) 358-2322
Talbot (T Bldg)
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Biography

Dr. Moon is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. She received a PhD in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where she was a NHLBI T32 graduate fellow in cardiovascular epidemiology. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at JHSPH. She is currently funded through a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Environmental Health which aims to evaluate the effects of lead and metal mixtures on cognitive decline and cognitive impairment, and epigenetic measures of aging in the Baltimore Memory Study. She is particularly interested in understanding how co-exposures to non-chemical stressors, such as social determinants and psychosocial stress, can interact with environmental determinants to produce environmental health disparities.

Dr. Moon’s multi-disciplinary research portfolio focuses on the epidemiology of environmental determinants of chronic disease in middle and older adults, particularly, cardiovascular, diabetes, and cognitive outcomes and aims to inform real-world policy and regulation. She uses both molecular epidemiologic tools, such as biomarkers of exposure to toxic metals/metalloids, and geospatial measures of contextual exposures, such as greenspace and built environment features, to measure environmental hazards. Dr. Moon’s research includes both traditional epidemiologic cohort studies, taking advantage of intensive data collection and stored biospecimens, as well as administrative data sources, such as electronic health records (EHR), that offer deep clinical data and large populations at relatively low cost. Her early work focused on understanding the effects of low-to-moderate levels of arsenic exposure on cardiovascular and diabetes outcomes and in quantifying the dose-response relation of arsenic exposure with cardiovascular disease across low to high levels of exposure to environmental arsenic. She has extensive experience working with the Strong Heart Study, a longitudinal cohort study of cardiovascular disease in American Indians. As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Moon conducted epidemiologic studies of type 2 diabetes and Lyme disease within the Geisinger electronic health record, evaluating an array of environmental and social exposures, as part of the Geisinger Environmental Health Institute.

Education

  • Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, PhD Field of Study: Epidemiology
  • Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, MPH Field of Study: Epidemiology
  • Tufts University, BS Field of Study: Biology/French

Websites

Publications

  • Published on 8/20/2024

    Moon KA, Poulsen MN, Bandeen-Roche K, Hirsch AG, DeWalle J, Pollak J, Schwartz BS. Community profiles in northeastern and central Pennsylvania characterized by distinct social, natural, food, and physical activity environments and their relation to type 2 diabetes. Environ Epidemiol. 2024 Oct; 8(5):e328. PMID: 39170821.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 7/1/2024

    Moon KA, Sol K, Simone SM, Zaheed AB, Krasnova A, Andrews RM, Vonk JMJ, Widaman KF, Armstrong NM. Depression, loneliness, and lower social activity as partial mediators of the association between visual impairment and cognitive decline. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2024 Jul; 39(7):e6123. PMID: 39019648.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/1/2023

    Moon KA, Nordberg CM, Orstad SL, Zhu A, Uddin J, Lopez P, Schwartz MD, Ryan V, Hirsch AG, Schwartz BS, Carson AP, Long DL, Meeker M, Brown J, Lovasi GS, Adhikari S, Kanchi R, Avramovic S, Imperatore G, Poulsen MN. Mediation of an association between neighborhood socioeconomic environment and type 2 diabetes through the leisure-time physical activity environment in an analysis of three independent samples. BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care. 2023 Mar; 11(2). PMID: 36858436.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 9/16/2022

    Schwartz BS, Kolak M, Pollak JS, Poulsen MN, Bandeen-Roche K, Moon KA, DeWalle J, Siegel KR, Mercado CI, Imperatore G, Hirsch AG. Associations of four indexes of social determinants of health and two community typologies with new onset type 2 diabetes across a diverse geography in Pennsylvania. PLoS One. 2022; 17(9):e0274758. PMID: 36112581.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 7/21/2022

    Hirsch AG, Nordberg CM, Bandeen-Roche K, Pollak J, Poulsen MN, Moon KA, Schwartz BS. Urban-Rural Differences in Health Care Utilization and COVID-19 Outcomes in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes. Prev Chronic Dis. 2022 Jul 21; 19:E44. PMID: 35862512.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 6/7/2022

    Zhao D, Domingo-Relloso A, Tellez-Plaza M, Nigra AE, Valeri L, Moon KA, Goessler W, Best LG, Ali T, Umans JG, Fretts A, Cole SA, Navas-Acien A. High Level of Selenium Exposure in the Strong Heart Study: A Cause for Incident Cardiovascular Disease? Antioxid Redox Signal. 2022 Nov; 37(13-15):990-997. PMID: 35350849.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 6/6/2022

    Domingo-Relloso A, Makhani K, Riffo-Campos AL, Tellez-Plaza M, Klein KO, Subedi P, Zhao J, Moon KA, Bozack AK, Haack K, Goessler W, Umans JG, Best LG, Zhang Y, Herreros-Martinez M, Glabonjat RA, Schilling K, Galvez-Fernandez M, Kent JW, Sanchez TR, Taylor KD, Johnson WC, Durda P, Tracy RP, Rotter JI, Rich SS, Van Den Berg D, Kasela S, Lappalainen T, Vasan RS, Joehanes R, Howard BV, Levy D, Lohman K, Liu Y, Fallin MD, Cole SA, Mann KK, Navas-Acien A. Arsenic Exposure, Blood DNA Methylation, and Cardiovascular Disease. Circ Res. 2022 Jul 08; 131(2):e51-e69. PMID: 35658476.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 12/20/2021

    Moon KA, Pollak JS, Poulsen MN, Heaney CD, Hirsch AG, Schwartz BS. Risk factors for Lyme disease stage and manifestation using electronic health records. BMC Infect Dis. 2021 Dec 20; 21(1):1269. PMID: 34930173.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 7/17/2021

    Hirsch AG, Nordberg CM, Chang A, Poulsen MN, Moon KA, Siegel KR, Rolka DB, Schwartz BS. Association of community socioeconomic deprivation with evidence of reduced kidney function at time of type 2 diabetes diagnosis. SSM Popul Health. 2021 Sep; 15:100876. PMID: 34377762.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 7/1/2021

    Heaney CD, Moon KA, Ostfeld RS, Pollak J, Poulsen MN, Hirsch AG, DeWalle J, Aucott JN, Schwartz BS. Relations of peri-residential temperature and humidity in tick-life-cycle-relevant time periods with human Lyme disease risk in Pennsylvania, USA. Sci Total Environ. 2021 Nov 15; 795:148697. PMID: 34252768.

     Read At: PubMed

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