Superfund Research Program

Brent A. Coull

Harvard School of Public Health
Bldg 2-413
665 Huntington Ave
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Phone: 617-432-2376
Email: bcoull@biostat.harvard.edu

Projects

• Harvard School of Public Health: Data Management and Analysis Core (2020-2025)
• Harvard School of Public Health: Environmental Statistics Core (2010-2015)
• Harvard School of Public Health: Optimizing Sampling and Statistical Analysis for Hazardous Waste Site Assessment (2010-2015)

Hazardous Waste Sites

Bangladesh

• Harvard School of Public Health: Optimizing Sampling and Statistical Analysis for Hazardous Waste Site Assessment

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho Superfund Site

• Harvard School of Public Health: Optimizing Sampling and Statistical Analysis for Hazardous Waste Site Assessment

Mexico City

• Harvard School of Public Health: Optimizing Sampling and Statistical Analysis for Hazardous Waste Site Assessment

Tar Creek (Ottawa County)

• Harvard School of Public Health: Optimizing Sampling and Statistical Analysis for Hazardous Waste Site Assessment

Publications

2023

• Laha N, Huey N, Coull BA, Mukherjee R. 2023. On statistical inference with high-dimensional sparse CCA. Inf Inference 12(4):iaad040. doi:10.1093/imaiai/iaad040 PMID:37982049 PMCID:PMC10656287
• Leung M, Rowland ST, Coull BA, Modest AM, Hacker MR, Schwartz J, Kioumourtzoglou M, Weisskopf MG, Wilson A. 2023. Bias amplification and variance inflation in distributed lag models using low-spatial-resolution data. Am J Epidemiol 192(4):644-657. doi:10.1093/aje/kwac220 PMID:36562713 PMCID:PMC10404064
• McGee G, Wilson A, Coull BA, Webster TF. 2023. Incorporating biological knowledge in analyses of environmental mixtures and health. Stat Med doi:10.1002/sim.9765 PMID:37161723
• Mork D, Kioumourtzoglou M, Weisskopf MG, Coull BA, Wilson A. 2023. Heterogeneous distributed lag models to estimate personalized effects of maternal exposures to air pollution. J Am Stat Assoc doi:10.1080/01621459.2023.2258595
• Rokoff LB, Coull BA, Enlow MB, Korrick SA. 2023. Associations of prenatal chemical and nonchemical stressors with early-adulthood anxiety and depressive symptoms. Environ Health Perspect 131(2):27004. doi:10.1289/EHP11171 PMID:36749608 PMCID:PMC9904409
• Schildroth S, Friedman A, White RF, Kordas K, Placidi D, Bauer J, Webster TF, Coull BA, Cagna G, Wright RO, Smith D, Lucchini R, Horton MK, Henn BC. 2023. Associations of an industry-relevant metal mixture with verbal learning and memory in Italian adolescents: The modifying role of iron status. Environ Res 224:115457. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2023.115457 PMID:36773645 PMCID:PMC10117691
• Valvi D, Christiani DC, Coull BA, Hojlund K, Nielsen F, Audouze K, Su L, Grandjean P. 2023. Gene-environment interactions in the associations of PFAS exposure with insulin sensitivity and beta-cell function in a Faroese cohort followed from birth to adulthood. Environ Res 226:115600. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2023.115600 PMID:36868448 PMCID:PMC1010192
• Zhang Y, Mustieles V, Wang Y, Sun Q, Coull BA, Sun Y, Slitt AL, Messerlian C. 2023. Red blood cell folate modifies the association between serum per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and antibody concentrations in U.S. adolescents. Environ Sci Technol 57(6):2445-2456. doi:10.1021/acs.est.2c07152 PMID:36715557

2022

• Antonelli J, Wilson A, Coull BA. 2022. Multiple exposure distributed lag models with variable selection. Biostatistics doi:10.1093/biostatistics/kxac038 PMID:36073640
• Devick K, Bobb JF, Mazumdar M, Claus Henn B, Bellinger DC, Wright RO, Williams PL, Coull BA, Valeri L, Christiani DC. 2022. Bayesian kernel machine regression-causal mediation analysis. Stat Med doi:10.1002/sim.9255 PMID:34993981
• Laha N, Huey N, Coull BA, Mukherjee R. 2022. On statistical inference with high dimensional sparse CCA. Arxiv
• Liu J, Deng W, Lee JJ, Lin PD, Valeri L, Christiani DC, Bellinger DC, Wright RO, Mazumdar M, Coull BA. 2022. A cross-validated ensemble approach to robust hypothesis testing of continuous nonlinear interactions: applications of nutrition-environment studies. J Am Stat Assoc 117(538):561-573. doi:10.1080/01621459.2021.1962889 PMID:36310839 PMCID:PMC9611147
• McGee G, Wilson A, Coull BA, Webster TF. 2022. Integrating biological knowledge in kernel-based analyses of environmental mixtures and health. Arxiv doi:10.48550/arXiv.1902.05878
• Oppenheimer AV, Bellinger DC, Coull BA, Weisskopf MG, Korrick SA. 2022. Prenatal exposure to chemical mixtures and working memory among adolescents. Environ Res 205:doi:10.1016/j.envres.2021.112436 PMID:34843721 PMCID:PMC8760169
• Oppenheimer AV, Bellinger DC, Coull BA, Weisskopf MG, Korrick SA. 2022. The association of prenatal manganese exposure with problem-solving skills and its mediation by the building blocks of executive function. Neurotoxicology 92:191-199. doi:10.1016/j.neuro.2022.08.009 PMID:35995271
• Rokoff LB, Shoaff JR, Coull BA, Enlow MB, Bellinger DC, Korrick SA. 2022. Prenatal exposure to a mixture of organochlorines and metals and internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence. Environ Res 208:doi:10.1016/j.envres.2022.112701 PMID:35016863 PMCID:PMC8917058

2021

• Bozack AK, Rifas-Shiman SL, Coull BA, Baccarelli A, Wright RO, Amarasiriwardena CJ, Gold DR, Oken E, Hivert M, Cardenas A. 2021. Prenatal metal exposure, cord blood DNA methylation and persistence in childhood: An epigenome-wide association study of 12 metals. Clin Epigenetics 13(1):208. doi:10.1186/s13148-021-01198-z PMID:34798907 PMCID:PMC8605513
• Liu J, Lee JJ, Lin PD, Valeri L, Christiani DC, Bellinger DC, Wright RO, Mazumdar M, Coull BA. 2021. A cross-validated Ensemble Approach to Robust Hypothesis Testing of Continuous Nonlinear Interactions: Application to Nutrition-Environment Studies. J Am Stat Assoc 13:
• McGee G, Wilson A, Webster TF, Coull BA. 2021. Bayesian multiple index models for environmental mixtures. Biometrics doi:10.1111/biom.13569 PMID:34562016
• Oppenheimer AV, Bellinger DC, Coull BA, Weisskopf MG, Zemplenyi M, Korrick SA. 2021. Prenatal exposure to chemical mixtures and inhibition among adolescents. Toxics 9(11):311. doi:10.3390/toxics9110311 PMID:34822702 PMCID:PMC8619850
• Smith A, Lin PD, Rifas-Shiman SL, Rahman ML, Gold DR, Baccarelli A, Claus Henn B, Amarasiriwardena CJ, Wright RO, Coull BA, Hivert M, Oken E, Cardenas A. 2021. Prospective associations of early pregnancy metal mixtures with mitochondria DNA copy number and telomere length in maternal and cord blood. Environ Health Perspect 129(11):117007. doi:10.1289/EHP9294 PMID:34797165 PMCID:PMC8604047
• Valvi D, Hojlund K, Coull BA, Nielsen F, Weihe P, Grandjean P. 2021. Life-course exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances in relation to markers of glucose homeostasis in early adulthood. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 106(8):2495-2504. doi:10.1210/clinem/dgab267 PMID:33890111 PMCID:PMC8277200

2020

• Antonelli J, Mazumdar M, Bellinger DC, Christiani DC, Wright RO, Coull BA. 2020. Estimating the health effects of environmental mixtures using bayesian semiparametric regression and sparsity inducing priors. Annals of Applied Statistics 14:257-275. doi:10.1214/19-aoas1307
• Kponee-Shovein K, Weisskopf MG, Grashow R, Rotem RS, Coull BA, Schnaas L, del Carmen Hernandez-Chavez M, Sanchez BN, Peterson K, Hu H, Tellez-Rojo M. 2020. Estimating the causal effect of prenatal lead exposure on prepulse inhibition deficits in children and adolescents. Neurotoxicology 78:116-126. doi:10.1016/j.neuro.2020.02.013 PMID:32126243
• Liu G, Zhang B, Hu Y, Rood J, Liang L, Qi L, Bray GA, DeJonge L, Coull BA, Grandjean P, Furtado JD, Sun Q. 2020. Associations of perfluoroalkyl substances with blood lipids and apolipoproteins in lipoprotein subspecies: The POUNDS-lost study. Environmental Health 19:doi:10.1186/s12940-020-0561-8 PMID:31931806 PMCID:PMC6958662

2019

• Gibson EA, Nunez Y, Abuawad A, Zota AR, Renzetti S, Devick K, Gennings C, Goldsmith A, Coull BA, Kioumourtzoglou M. 2019. An overview of methods to address distinct research questions on environmental mixtures: an application to persistent organic pollutants and leukocyte telomere length. Environ Health 18:doi:10.1186/s12940-019-0515-1 PMID:31462251 PMCID:PMC6714427
• Kponee-Shovein K, Grashow R, Coull BA, Tellez-Rojo M, Schnaas L, del Carmen Hernandez-Chavez M, Sanchez BN, Peterson K, Hu H, Hernandez-Avila M, Weisskopf MG. 2019. Socio-demographic predictors of prepulse inhibition: A prospective study in children and adolescents from Mexico City. Biol Psychol 145:8-16. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.03.003 PMID:30940478
• Liu J, Lee JJ, Lynn P, Valeri L, Christiani DC, Bellinger DC, Wright RO, Mazumdar M, Coull BA. 2019. A Cross-validated Ensemble Approach to Robust Hypothesis Testing of Continuous Nonlinear Interactions: Application to Nutrition-Environment Studies. J Am Stat Assoc

2018

• Sun Q, Zong G, Valvi D, Nielsen F, Coull BA, Grandjean P. 2018. Plasma concentrations of perfluoroalkyl substances and risk of type 2 diabetes: A prospective investigation among U.S. women. Environ Health Perspect 126:037001. doi:10.1289/ehp2619 PMID:29498927 PMCID:PMC6071816

2017

• Henn BC, Bellinger DC, Hopkins MR, Coull BA, Ettinger AS, Jim R, Hatley EL, Christiani DC, Wright RO. 2017. Maternal and cord blood manganese concentrations and early childhood neurodevelopment among residents near a mining-impacted superfund site. Environ Health Perspect 125:9. doi:10.1289/ehp925 PMID:28665786
• Liu J, Coull BA. 2017. Robust Hypothesis Test for Nonlinear Effect with Gaussian Processes. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems
• Tamayo y Ortiz M, Tellez-Rojo MM, Trejo-Valdivia B, Schnaas L, Osorio-Valencia E, Coull BA, Bellinger DC, Wright RJ, Wright RO. 2017. Maternal stress modifies the effect of exposure to lead during pregnancy and 24-month old children's neurodevelopment. Environ Int 98:191-197. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2016.11.005 PMID:27865525 PMCID:PMC5221478
• Valeri L, Mazumdar M, Bobb JF, Henn BC, Rodrigues EG, Sharif OI, Kile ML, Quamruzzaman Q, Afroz S, Golam M, Amarasiriwardena C, Bellinger DC, Christiani DC, Coull BA, Wright RO. 2017. Effect of prenatal exposure to metal mixtures on neurodevelopmental outcomes at 20-40 months of age: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh. Environ Health Perspect 125:11. doi:10.1289/ehp614 PMID:28669934

2016

• Claus Henn B, Ettinger AS, Hopkins MR, Jim R, Amarasiriwardena CJ, Christiani DC, Coull BA, Bellinger DC, Wright RO. 2016. Prenatal arsenic exposure and birth outcomes among a population residing near a mining-related Superfund site. Environ Health Perspect 124(8):1308-1315. doi:10.1289/ehp.1510070 PMID:26859631 PMCID:PMC4977047
• Dong Z, Lewis CG, Burgess RM, Coull BA, Shine JP. 2016. Statistical evaluation of biogeochemical variables affecting spatiotemporal distributions of multiple free metal ion concentrations in an urban estuary. Chemosphere 150:202-210. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2016.02.020 PMID:26901477
• Stroustrup A, Hsu H, Svensson K, Schnaas L, Cantoral A, Solano-Gonzalez M, Torres-Calapiz M, Amarasiriwardena CJ, Bellinger DC, Coull BA, Tellez-Rojo MM, Wright RO, Wright RJ. 2016. Toddler temperament and prenatal exposure to lead and maternal depression. Environ Health 15(1):71. doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0147-7 PMID:27312840 PMCID:PMC4910201
• Tamayo y Ortiz M, Tellez-Rojo MM, Wright RJ, Coull BA, Wright RO. 2016. Longitudinal associations of age and prenatal lead exposure on cortisol secretion of 12-24 month-old infants from Mexico City. Environ Health 15:41. doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0124-1 PMID:26926653 PMCID:PMC4772459

2015

• Alexeeff SE, Schwartz J, Kloog I, Chudnovsky A, Koutrakis P, Coull BA. 2015. Consequences of kriging and land use regression for PM25 predictions in epidemiologic analyses: insights into spatial variability using high-resolution satellite data. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 25(2):138-144. doi:10.1038/jes.2014.40 PMID:24896768 PMCID:PMC4758216
• Bobb JF, Valeri L, Henn BC, Wright RO, Mazumdar M, Godleski J, Coull BA, Christiani DC. 2015. Bayesian kernel machine regression for estimating the health effects of multi-pollutant mixtures. Biostatistics 16(3):493-508. doi:10.1093/biostatistics/kxu058 PMID:25532525
• Lakshmanan A, Chiu YH, Coull BA, Just AC, Maxwell SL, Schwartz J, Gryparis A, Kloog I, Wright RJ, Wright RO. 2015. Associations between prenatal traffic-related air pollution exposure and birth weight: Modification by sex and maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index. Environ Res 137:268-277. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2014.10.035 PMID:25601728 PMCID:PMC4354711
• Meyer M, Coull BA, Versace F, Cinciripini P, Morris JS. 2015. Bayesian function-on-function regression for multilevel functional data. Biometrics 71(3):563-574. doi:10.1111/biom.12299 PMID:25787146 PMCID:PMC4575250

2014

• Bliznyuk N, Paciorek CJ, Schwartz J, Coull BA. 2014. Nonlinear predictive latent process models for integrating spatio-temporal exposure data from multiple sources. Annals of Applied Statistics 8(3):1538-1560. doi:10.1214/14-aoas737
• Claus Henn B, Coull BA, Wright RO. 2014. Chemical mixtures and children's health. Curr Opin Pediatr 26(2):223-229. doi:10.1097/MOP.0000000000000067 PMID:24535499 PMCID:PMC4043217
• Zanobetti A, Coull BA, Gryparis A, Kloog I, Sparrow D, Vokonas PS, Wright RO, Gold DR, Schwartz J. 2014. Associations between arrhythmia episodes and temporally and spatially resolved black carbon and particulate matter in elderly patients. Occup Environ Med 71(3):201-207. doi:10.1136/oemed-2013-101526 PMID:24142987 PMCID:PMC4371778

2013

• Power MC, Weisskopf MG, Alexeeff SE, Wright RO, Coull BA, Spiro, III A, Schwartz J. 2013. Modification by hemochromatosis gene polymorphisms of the association between traffic-related air pollution and cognition in older men: a cohort study. Environ Health 12:16. doi:10.1186/1476-069x-12-16 PMID:23413885 PMCID:PMC3599892

2012

• Sofer T, Maity A, Coull BA, Baccarelli A, Schwartz J, Lin X. 2012. Multivariate gene selection and testing in studying the exposure effects on a gene set. Stat Biosci 4(2):319-338. doi:10.1007/s12561-012-9072-7 PMID:23264831 PMCID:PMC3524591

2011

• Power MC, Weisskopf MG, Coull BA, Spiro, III A, Schwartz J. 2011. Traffic-related air pollution and cognitive function in a cohort of older men. Environ Health Perspect 119:682-687. doi:10.1289/ehp.1002767 PMID:21172758 PMCID:PMC3094421
• Wang S, Coull BA, Schwartz J, Mittleman MA, Wellenius GA. 2011. Potential for bias in case-crossover studies with shared exposures analyzed using SAS. Am J Epidemiol 174(1):118-24. doi:10.1093/aje/kwr038 PMID:21540322 PMCID:PMC3133813

2008

• Park S, O'Neill MS, Vokonas PS, Sparrow D, Wright RO, Coull BA, Nie H, Hu H, Schwartz J. 2008. Air pollution and heart rate variability: effect modification by chronic lead exposure. Epidemiology 19(1):111-120. doi:10.1097/EDE.0b013e31815c408a PMID:18091001 PMCID:PMC2671065

2006

• Park SK, Schwartz J, Weisskopf MG, Vokonas PS, Wright RO, Coull BA, Nie H, Hu H. 2006. Low-level lead exposure, metabolic syndrome, and heart rate variability: the VA Normative Aging Study. Environ Health Perspect 114(11):1718-24. PMID:17107858

2004

• Houseman EA, Ryan LM, Coull BA. 2004. Cholesky residuals for assessing normal errors in a linear model with correlated outcomes. J Am Stat Assoc 99(466):383-394.
• Vinturella AE, Burgess RM, Coull BA, Thompson KM, Shine JP. 2004. Importance of black carbon in distribution and bioaccumulation models of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in contaminated marine sediments. Environ Toxicol Chem 23(11):2578-2586. doi:10.1897/03-358 PMID:15559271
• Vinturella AE, Burgess RM, Coull BA, Thompson KM, Shine JP. 2004. Use of passive samplers to mimic uptake of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by benthic polychaetes. Environ Sci Technol 38(4):1154-1160. doi:10.1021/es034706f PMID:14998031

2003

• Morrison A, Coughlin K, Shine JP, Coull BA, Rex A. 2003. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of beach water quality indicator variables. Appl Environ Microbiol 69(11):6405-6411. PMID:14602593
• Shine JP, Trapp CJ, Coull BA. 2003. Use of receiver operating characteristic curves to evaluate sediment quality guidelines for metals. Environ Toxicol Chem 22(7):1642-1648. PMID:12836991

1999

• Clarke RW, Catalano PJ, Koutrakis P, Krishna-Murthy GG, Sioutas C, Paulauskis JD, Coull BA, Ferguson S, Godleski J. 1999. Urban air particulate inhalation alters pulmonary function and induces pulmonary inflammation in a rodent model of chronic bronchitis. Inhal Toxicol 11(8):637-656. doi:10.1080/089583799196781 PMID:10477440