Erika Garcia, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences
Biography
Erika Garcia is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Environmental Health of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. She is an environmental epidemiologist whose research focuses on the role of airborne environmental contaminants in the development of human disease and applies both traditional epidemiologic as well as advanced causal inference methodologies. She has published studies conducted in both occupational and community exposure settings. Her early research involved examination of the healthy worker survivor effect and application of g-methods in cancer studies of autoworkers exposed to metalworking fluids. More recently, her research has focused on the effects of early-life air pollution exposure on pediatric respiratory and metabolic health outcomes, including new-onset asthma, lung function, and childhood obesity. As part of these studies, she uses causal inference methods to estimate effects of policy-relevant air pollution interventions. Dr. Garcia received a PhD and MPH in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.
Research Interests
- Morbidity and mortality
- Climate Change
- Air Pollution
- respiratory
- Multilevel Modeling
Publications
Geographic Variations in Human Mobility Patterns during the First Six Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic in California
Applied Sciences. 2023;13(4):2440. PMID: doi:10.3390/app13042440.
Effect of Parental Adverse Childhood Experiences on Intergenerational DNA Methylation Signatures.
Res Sq. 2023 Jun 26;. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-2977515/v1. Epub 2023 Jun 26. PubMed PMID: 37461498; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10350189.
Adaptation Resources and Responses to Wildfire Smoke and Other Forms of Air Pollution in Low-Income Urban Settings: A Mixed-Methods Study.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Apr 4;20(7). doi: 10.3390/ijerph20075393. Epub 2023 Apr 4. PubMed PMID: 37048007; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10094253.
Ambient temperature and air pollution associations with suicide and homicide mortality in California: A statewide case-crossover study.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Feb 27;874:162462. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162462. Epub 2023 Feb 27. PubMed PMID: 36858215;
California's early transition to electric vehicles: Observed health and air quality co-benefits.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Apr 1;867:161761. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161761. Epub 2023 Feb 2. PubMed PMID: 36739036;