Howard Frumkin | An Island Press author

Howard Frumkin

Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH is Senior Vice President of the Trust for Public Land, and professor emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health, where he was Dean from 2010-2016.  He was previously head of Our Planet, Our Health at the Wellcome Trust, director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (NCEH/ATSDR), and Special Assistant to the CDC Director for Climate Change and Health, and Professor and Chair of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Emory Medical School.

Dr. Frumkin has served on the Boards of the Bullitt Foundation, the Seattle Parks Foundation, the American Public Health Association, the US Green Building Council, the Children and Nature Network, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, among others.  He has served on the Steering Committee of the Planetary Health Alliance (Harvard University), as a faculty affiliate at UCLA’s Center for Healthy Climate Solutions, and on advisory committees to the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education (Columbia University), the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health (George Mason University), EcoHealth International, and the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health.

He is the author, co-author, or editor of over 300 scientific journal articles, chapters, and books, including the standard environmental health textbook, Environmental Health: From Global to Local, and four Island Press titles.

Dr. Frumkin is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Collegium Ramazzini, and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He loves cycling, kayaking, and hiking. He is married to radio journalist Joanne Silberner, and has two children.

How We Make Healthier Places with Howard Frumkin, Nisha D. Botchwey, Andrew Dannenberg, and Ron Sims

Monday, November 14, 2022 - 7:30pm PST
The first edition of Making Healthy Places offered a visionary and thoroughly researched treatment of the connections between constructed environments and human health. Since its publication over 10 years ago, the field of healthy community design has evolved significantly to address major societal problems, including health disparities, obesity, and climate change. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended how we live, work, learn, play, and travel.

Town Hall Seattle event: Howard Frumkin with Joseph Winters -- A roadmap for protecting nature to protect ourselves

Monday, November 22, 2021 - 6:00pm PST
It’s no secret that human health and the health of Earth’s systems — in particular, the air, water, biodiversity, and climate — are inextricably linked. It’s also no secret that Earth’s systems are changing in ways that can feel daunting and unwieldy. But with all great change comes great opportunity, and the emerging field of Planetary Health offers glimmers of hope rooted in actions, strategies, and a deepened understanding of our interconnectedness.

2020 Bioneers Conference: Beyond the Great Unraveling -- Weaving the World Anew

Saturday, December 5, 2020 - 10:00am EST
The Conference will take place on four days: December 5-6 and 12-13. Each day of the Conference will be presented in two parts: Part 1: Plenary Session and Panels Part 1 of the 2020 Bioneers Conference feature topic experts, discussing and presenting on world-changing solutions, combined with performances, arts interludes, films and other content. The format of the Main Conference will be as follows:

Webinar: A New Deal for Planetary Health

Wednesday, September 9, 2020 - 4:15pm EDT
In spite of lingering global public health problems, human wellbeing has never been better. In the past 65 years through scientific advancement, for example, the proportion of the world’s people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 63% to 10% in spite of a tripling of the global population. That same technological advancement that has pulled much of humanity out of extreme poverty and provided other dramatic human benefits, has also increased man’s the human ecological footprint and exploded consumption of natural resources.