MACCHE - About Us

The Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health and the Environment

Mission
To improve the recognition, evaluation and management of environmental health problems among the children of Federal Region III, which includes Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Goals

• To increase the cooperation and exchange of information between pediatricians and occupational and environmental health professionals, both within the GWUMC-CNMC and at other institutions within Region III.
• To conduct educational activities that will assist both health professional and communities in addressing environmental risks to children.
• To improve the recognition, evaluation and management of environmental health problems in children within Region III.
• To develop new knowledge about communications between clinicians, parents, and patients about pediatric environmental health issues in order to create more effective educational programs, and communication messages and methods.
• To reduce environmental health disparities among children in Region III by achieving the above four goals. 3

Leadership and Sponsors

• Jerome A. Paulson, MD, Co-Director
• Kevin Osterhoudt, MD, Consultant Toxicologist
• Lauren Gordon, MPH, CHES, Project Coordinator
• Our Sponsors

Jerome A. Paulson, MD, Co-Director is associate professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences and Associate Professor of Prevention & Community Health and Research Associate Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health at the GW School of Public Health & Health Services. He is the Medical Director for National & Global Affairs of the Children’s Health Advocacy Institute at the Children’s National Medical Center. Dr. Paulson is one of the co-directors of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment.

Dr. Paulson serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Environmental Health and the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee for the US Environmental Protection Agency. He also serves on the Pediatric Medical Care Committee of the National Commission on Children and Disasters and part of the National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures organized by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. In October 2004 he was a Dozor Visiting Professor at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel. He lectured there and throughout Israel on children’s environmental health. He was a recipient of a Soros Advocacy Fellowship for Physicians from the Open Society Institute and worked with the Children’s Environmental Health Network, and has also served as a special assistant to the director of the National Center on Environmental Health of the CDC working on children’s environmental health issues. He has developed several new courses for the GW School of Public Health about Children’s Health and the Environment. He is the editor of the October, 2001 and the February and April 2007 editions of Pediatric Clinics of North America on children’s environmental health. He has served on numerous boards and committees related to children’s environmental health.

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Kevin Osterhoudt, MD, MS, Consultant Toxicologist is an associate professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, and is the medical director of The Poison Control Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition to being a pediatrician- and toxicologist-consultant to the MACCHE, Dr. Osterhoudt is a member of the executive committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health and is part of the Community Outreach and Education Core of the Center for Excellence in Environmental Toxicology at the University of Pennsylvania. A highly regarded teacher, Dr. Osterhoudt has been the recipient of the American College of Medical Toxicology’s Award for Significant Contributions to the Educational Pursuits of Medical Toxicology. His leisure activities of hiking, kayaking, and fishing contribute to his reverence of the natural environment.

Lauren Gordon, MPH, CHES, Project Coordinator is Program Coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment at Children’s National Medical Center. She obtained her BA in Sociology & Africana Studies with a minor in Biology from Binghamton University. She then obtained an MPH in Environmental & Occupational Health from Drexel University School of Public Health and completed a two year post graduate fellowship at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Children’s Health Protection and the National Center for Environmental Research. Her research interests include children’s environmental health, environmentally mediated health disparities and its affect on minority and tribal populations, and the social determinants of health.

These web pages were supported by the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics (AOEC) and funded (in part) by the cooperative agreement award number 1U61TS000118-03 from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

Acknowledgement: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports the PEHSU by providing funds to ATSDR under Inter-Agency Agreement number DW-75-92301301-0. Neither EPA nor ATSDR endorse the purchase of any commercial products or services mentioned in PEHSU publications.