Barbara Cohn

Barbara A. Cohn is an American epidemiologist and the Director of Child Health and Development Studies, a program of the Public Health Institute in Oakland, California. She is best known for her work in child health and development.

Education Cohn received her bachelor's degree in zoology at the University of California, Berkeley after transferring from University of Michigan. She stayed at UC Berkeley to complete her Master of Public Health and Masters of City and Regional Planning in 1975, and went on to receive her PhD in epidemiology in 1984.

Research Cohn became co-director of the Child Health and Development Studies (CHDS) at the Public Health Institute in 1997 and became its director in 2001. The chemical was banned from use in the United States in 1972, and has since been banned in several other countries, because of well-documented health concerns. Nevertheless, the study found that women who had been exposed to DDT in utero more than 50 years ago had a fourfold increased risk of breast cancer than women exposed to lower levels. While previous studies have linked different complications to subsequent cardiovascular disease risk, this work was unique in that Cohn and her co-investigator Piera M. Cirillo examined how these different pregnancy complications can come together in different combinations to modulate that risk. They used data from CDHS collected over five decades.

Awards and honors

Community Breast Canter Research Award, Zero Breast Cancer, 2015