Rima Habre, ScD

Dr. Habre is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California. Her research aims to understand the effects of co-occurring environmental exposures, air pollution mixtures and social stressors on the health of vulnerable populations across the life course. She develops methods to advance precision environmental health using personal monitoring (e.g., wearables, sensors), geolocation, and machine-learning based spatiotemporal models.

As a native of Beirut, Lebanon, Dr. Habre attended the American University of Beirut for undergraduate studies in Environmental Health (2006). She then completed a Master of Science in Environmental Health in the Harvard Cyprus Program (2007).

Dr. Habre then joined the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and trained with Professor Petros Koutrakis. She received her Doctor of Science in Environmental Health (2012) with a concentration in exposure science, air pollution and biostatistics.

Dr. Habre co-leads the Exposure Sciences Research Program in the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center (NIEHS Core Center). She is also the Director of Exposure Assessment in two large research centers at USC investigating the effects of air pollution exposure over the life course and during pregnancy on maternal and child health.

Select Appointments:
— Standing Committee on the Use of Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) (2022 – 2023)
— Emerging Science on Indoor Chemistry consensus study and committee, NASEM (2021- 2023)
— Technical Expert Panel, Expanding Climate Change and Health Data Infrastructure to Advance Health Interventions: Linking Health and Environmental Data to Improve Patient and Community Health, HHS Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (2023 – current)
— Source Specific Burden of Disease Methodology Expert Working Group, WHO Global Air Pollution and Health Technical Advisory Group, World Health Organization (2021 – 2023)

Research Interests
1. Developing measurement and modeling methods for advancing air pollution exposure science
2. Use of real-time mHealth technologies, personal monitoring, sensors, geolocation and informatics for precision environmental health
3. Epidemiological investigations of the effects of air pollution mixtures and sources on the health of vulnerable populations across the life course
4. Cumulative impact of environmental health disparities on exposure and health burden in affected populations

• NIH/NIEHS: Young Investigator Award (scientific pursuits and accomplishments, future leadership potential), 2017
• American University of Beirut: Penrose Award […] Best Combination of the Qualities of Scholarship, Character, and Leadership, 2006

• Prenatal air pollution exposure is associated with inflammatory, cardiovascular, and metabolic biomarkers in mothers and newborns Environ Res. 2024 Mar 28; 252(Pt 1):118797. . View in PubMed
• Increased Risk of Gestational Hypertension by Periconceptional Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution and Effect Modification by Prenatal Depression Hypertension. 2024 Mar 27. . View in PubMed
• GPS-derived environmental exposures during pregnancy and early postpartum – Evidence from the madres cohort Sci Total Environ. 2024 Mar 25; 918:170551. . View in PubMed
• Maternal Dietary Patterns During Pregnancy Are Linked to Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy Among a Predominantly Low-Income US Hispanic/Latina Pregnancy Cohort J Am Heart Assoc. 2024 Feb 27; e029848. . View in PubMed
• Sources of personal PM25 exposure during pregnancy in the MADRES cohort. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2024 Feb 07. . View in PubMed
• Perceived Stress From Childhood to Adulthood and Cardiometabolic End Points in Young Adulthood: An 18-Year Prospective Study J Am Heart Assoc. 2024 Feb 06; 13(3):e030741. . View in PubMed
• The Role of Social Support and Acculturation Factors on Postpartum Mental Health Among Latinas in the MADRES Pregnancy Cohort J Immigr Minor Health. 2024 Feb; 26(1):72-80. . View in PubMed
• Prenatal exposures to organophosphate ester metabolites and early motor development in the MADRES cohort Environ Pollut. 2024 Feb 01; 342:123131. . View in PubMed
• A Comparison of Measured Airborne and Self-Reported Secondhand Smoke Exposure in the MADRES Pregnancy Cohort Study Nicotine Tob Res. 2023 Oct 17. . View in PubMed
• Poor Sleep Quality Increases Gestational Weight Gain Rate in Pregnant People: Findings from the MADRES Study Res Sq. 2023 Sep 25. . View in PubMed
• Preconceptional and prenatal exposure to air pollutants and risk of gestational diabetes in the MADRES prospective pregnancy cohort study Lancet Reg Health Am. 2023 Sep; 25:100575. . View in PubMed
• Effects of In-Utero Personal Exposure to PM25 Sources and Components on Birthweight. Res Sq. 2023 Jun 07. . View in PubMed
• “They might take my baby away:” Black and Latina peoples’ experiences of using cannabis during pregnancy in California while engaged in perinatal care J Perinatol. 2023 12; 43(12):1497-1499. . View in PubMed
• Incidence rates of childhood asthma with recurrent exacerbations in the US Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2023 07; 152(1):84-93. . View in PubMed
• Effects of in-utero personal exposure to PM25 sources and components on birthweight. Sci Rep. 2023 12 11; 13(1):21987. . View in PubMed
• Developing a National-Scale Exposure Index for Combined Environmental Hazards and Social Stressors and Applications to the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 07 10; 20(14). . View in PubMed
• Prenatal exposures to organophosphate ester metabolite mixtures and children’s neurobehavioral outcomes in the MADRES pregnancy cohort Environ Health. 2023 09 22; 22(1):66. . View in PubMed
• Urinary fluoride levels and metal co-exposures among pregnant women in Los Angeles, California Environ Health. 2023 10 26; 22(1):74. . View in PubMed
• The Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO)-Wide Cohort Am J Epidemiol. 2023 08 04; 192(8):1249-1263. . View in PubMed
• Prenatal ambient air pollution exposure and child weight trajectories from the 3rd trimester of pregnancy to 2 years of age: a cohort study BMC Med. 2023 09 07; 21(1):341. . View in PubMed
• High Resolution and Spatiotemporal Place-Based Computable Exposures at Scale AMIA Jt Summits Transl Sci Proc. 2023; 2023:62-70. . View in PubMed
• Sex-specific effects of prenatal organophosphate ester (OPE) metabolite mixtures and adverse infant birth outcomes in the maternal and developmental risks from environmental and social stressors (MADRES) pregnancy cohort Environ Res. 2023 06 01; 226:115703. . View in PubMed
• A Vegetable, Oil, and Fruit Dietary Pattern in Late Pregnancy is Linked to Reduced Risks of Adverse Birth Outcomes in a Predominantly Low-Income Hispanic and Latina Pregnancy Cohort J Nutr. 2023 01 14; 152(12):2837-2846. . View in PubMed
• Correction: Childhood traffic-related air pollution and adverse changes in subclinical atherosclerosis measures from childhood to adulthood Environ Health. 2022 Nov 16; 21(1):110. . View in PubMed
• Detected prenatal perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) exposure is associated with decreased fetal head biometric parameters in participants experiencing higher perceived stress during pregnancy in the MADRES cohort Environ Adv. 2022 Oct; 9. . View in PubMed
• Adverse childhood experiences and prenatal depression in the maternal and development risks from environmental and social stressors pregnancy cohort J Obstet Gynaecol. 2022 Oct; 42(7):3014-3020. . View in PubMed
• In-utero personal exposure to PM25 impacted by indoor and outdoor sources and birthweight in the MADRES cohort. Environ Adv. 2022 Oct; 9. . View in PubMed
• Role of Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in Perceived Stress and Depressive Symptomatology Trends During Pregnancy J Immigr Minor Health. 2022 Jun; 24(3):561-569. . View in PubMed
• The impact of GPS-derived activity spaces on personal PM25 exposures in the MADRES cohort. Environ Res. 2022 11; 214(Pt 2):114029. . View in PubMed
• Associations between combined exposure to environmental hazards and social stressors at the neighborhood level and individual perinatal outcomes in the ECHO-wide cohort Health Place. 2022 07; 76:102858. . View in PubMed
• Time-activity and daily mobility patterns during pregnancy and early postpartum – evidence from the MADRES cohort Spat Spatiotemporal Epidemiol. 2022 06; 41:100502. . View in PubMed
• Household pesticide exposures and infant gross motor development in the MADRES cohort Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2022 03; 36(2):220-229. . View in PubMed
• Association of Breastfeeding Duration with 12-Month Postpartum Blood Lipids in a Predominately Lower-Income Hispanic Pregnancy Cohort in Los Angeles Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 03 04; 19(5). . View in PubMed
• Perceived vulnerability to immigration policies among postpartum Hispanic/Latina women in the MADRES pregnancy cohort before and during the COVID-19 pandemic Womens Health (Lond). 2022 Jan-Dec; 18:17455057221125103. . View in PubMed
• Association Between Ambient Air Pollution and Birth Weight by Maternal Individual- and Neighborhood-Level Stressors JAMA Netw Open. 2022 10 03; 5(10):e2238174. . View in PubMed
• Daily Associations of Air Pollution and Pediatric Asthma Risk Using the Biomedical REAI-Time Health Evaluation (BREATHE) Kit Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 03 17; 19(6). . View in PubMed
• Why Indoor Chemistry Matters: A National Academies Consensus Report Environ Sci Technol. 2022 08 02; 56(15):10560-10563. . View in PubMed
• Identifying pre-conception and pre-natal periods in which ambient air pollution exposure affects fetal growth in the predominately Hispanic MADRES cohort Environ Health. 2022 11 26; 21(1):115. . View in PubMed
• Prenatal Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) Exposure Is Associated With Lower Infant Birthweight Within the MADRES Pregnancy Cohort Front Epidemiol. 2022; 2:934715. . View in PubMed
• W-TSS: A Wavelet-Based Algorithm for Discovering Time Series Shapelets Sensors (Basel). 2021 Aug 28; 21(17). . View in PubMed
• Long-term exposures to air pollutants affect FeNO in children: a longitudinal study Eur Respir J. 2021 11; 58(5). . View in PubMed
• Prenatal metal mixtures and fetal size in mid-pregnancy in the MADRES study Environ Res. 2021 05; 196:110388. . View in PubMed
• Estimating hourly PM25 concentrations at the neighborhood scale using a low-cost air sensor network: A Los Angeles case study. Environ Res. 2021 04; 195:110653. . View in PubMed
• Demographic predictors of urinary arsenic in a low-income predominantly Hispanic pregnancy cohort in Los Angeles J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2021 02; 31(1):94-107. . View in PubMed
• Contribution of tailpipe and non-tailpipe traffic sources to quasi-ultrafine, fine and coarse particulate matter in southern California J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 2021 02; 71(2):209-230. . View in PubMed
• Childhood traffic-related air pollution and adverse changes in subclinical atherosclerosis measures from childhood to adulthood Environ Health. 2021 04 14; 20(1):44. . View in PubMed
• Ambient air pollutants are associated with morning serum cortisol in overweight and obese Latino youth in Los Angeles Environ Health. 2021 04 08; 20(1):39. . View in PubMed
• Environ Health. 2021 11 27; 20(1):121. . View in PubMed
• Using dynamic time warping self-organizing maps to characterize diurnal patterns in environmental exposures Sci Rep. 2021 12 15; 11(1):24052. . View in PubMed
• Biomedical REAl-Time Health Evaluation (BREATHE): toward an mHealth informatics platform JAMIA Open. 2020 Jul; 3(2):190-200. . View in PubMed
• Exposure Measurement Error in Air Pollution Studies: The Impact of Shared, Multiplicative Measurement Error on Epidemiological Health Risk Estimates Air Qual Atmos Health. 2020 Jun; 13(6):631-643. . View in PubMed
• Spatiotemporal Imputation of MAIAC AOD Using Deep Learning with Downscaling Remote Sens Environ. 2020 Feb; 237. . View in PubMed
• Ensemble-based deep learning for estimating PM25 over California with multisource big data including wildfire smoke. Environ Int. 2020 12; 145:106143. . View in PubMed
• Domain Adaptation in Children Activity Recognition Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2019 Jul; 2019:1725-1728. . View in PubMed
• Study Design, Protocol and Profile of the Maternal And Developmental Risks from Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES) Pregnancy Cohort: a Prospective Cohort Study in Predominantly Low-Income Hispanic Women in Urban Los Angeles BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2019 May 30; 19(1):189. . View in PubMed
• Deliberating performance targets workshop: Potential paths for emerging PM25 and O3 air sensor progress. Atmos Environ X. 2019 Apr; 2:100031. . View in PubMed
• Within-subject effects of environmental and social stressors on pre- and post-partum obesity-related biobehavioral responses in low-income Hispanic women: protocol of an intensive longitudinal study BMC Public Health. 2019 Feb 28; 19(1):253. . View in PubMed
• Methodologies for assessing contextual exposure to the built environment in physical activity studies: A systematic review Health Place. 2019 11; 60:102226. . View in PubMed
• Air Pollution Monitoring for Health Research and Patient CareAn Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2019 10; 16(10):1207-1214. . View in PubMed
• Cluster-based bagging of constrained mixed-effects models for high spatiotemporal resolution nitrogen oxides prediction over large regions Environ Int. 2019 07; 128:310-323. . View in PubMed
• Exposure measurement error in air pollution studies: A framework for assessing shared, multiplicative measurement error in ensemble learning estimates of nitrogen oxides Environ Int. 2019 04; 125:97-106. . View in PubMed
• Applying Multivariate Segmentation Methods to Human Activity Recognition From Wearable Sensors’ Data JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2019 02 07; 7(2):e11201. . View in PubMed
• Children Activity Recognition: Challenges and Strategies Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2018 Jul; 2018:4331-4334. . View in PubMed
• Ambient and Traffic-Related Air Pollution Exposures as Novel Risk Factors for Metabolic Dysfunction and Type 2 Diabetes Curr Epidemiol Rep. 2018 Jun; 5(2):79-91. . View in PubMed
• Examining family and neighborhood level predictors of sleep duration in urban youth Fam Syst Health. 2018 12; 36(4):439-450. . View in PubMed
• Short-term effects of airport-associated ultrafine particle exposure on lung function and inflammation in adults with asthma Environ Int. 2018 09; 118:48-59. . View in PubMed
• Prenatal traffic-related air pollution exposures, cord blood adipokines and infant weight Pediatr Obes. 2018 06; 13(6):348-356. . View in PubMed
• Effect of inhaled allergens and air pollutants on childhood rhinitis development Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2018 02; 120(2):212-214. . View in PubMed
• Exposure to traffic-related air pollution and the composition of the gut microbiota in overweight and obese adolescents Environ Res. 2018 02; 161:472-478. . View in PubMed
• Effects of air pollution exposure on glucose metabolism in Los Angeles minority children Pediatr Obes. 2018 01; 13(1):54-62. . View in PubMed
• Longitudinal associations of in utero and early life near-roadway air pollution with trajectories of childhood body mass index Environ Health. 2018 09 14; 17(1):64. . View in PubMed
• Association of Prenatal Exposure to Ambient and Traffic-Related Air Pollution With Newborn Thyroid Function: Findings From the Children’s Health Study JAMA Netw Open. 2018 09 07; 1(5):e182172. . View in PubMed
• Mining Public Datasets for Modeling Intra-City PM25 Concentrations at a Fine Spatial Resolution. Proc ACM SIGSPATIAL Int Conf Adv Inf. 2017 Nov; 2017. . View in PubMed
• Constrained Mixed-Effect Models with Ensemble Learning for Prediction of Nitrogen Oxides Concentrations at High Spatiotemporal Resolution Environ Sci Technol. 2017 Sep 05; 51(17):9920-9929. . View in PubMed
• A Scalable Data Integration and Analysis Architecture for Sensor Data of Pediatric Asthma Proc Int Conf Data Eng. 2017 Apr; 2017:1407-1408. . View in PubMed
• Longitudinal Associations Between Ambient Air Pollution With Insulin Sensitivity, ß-Cell Function, and Adiposity in Los Angeles Latino Children Diabetes. 2017 07; 66(7):1789-1796. . View in PubMed
• Effects of Childhood Asthma on the Development of Obesity among School-aged Children Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2017 05 01; 195(9):1181-1188. . View in PubMed
• Genetic and epigenetic susceptibility of airway inflammation to PM25 in school children: new insights from quantile regression. Environ Health. 2017 08 18; 16(1):88. . View in PubMed
• Sleep duration and risk of physical aggression against peers in urban youth Sleep Health. 2016 Jun; 2(2):129-135. . View in PubMed
• Ambient Air Pollutants Have Adverse Effects on Insulin and Glucose Homeostasis in Mexican Americans Diabetes Care. 2016 Apr; 39(4):547-54. . View in PubMed
• Traffic-related air pollution and alveolar nitric oxide in southern California children Eur Respir J. 2016 05; 47(5):1348-56. . View in PubMed
• Lifetime prevalence of childhood eczema and the effect of indoor environmental factors: Analysis in Hispanic and non-Hispanic white children Allergy Asthma Proc. 2016 Jan-Feb; 37(1):64-71. . View in PubMed
• Living near a freeway is associated with lower bone mineral density among Mexican Americans Osteoporos Int. 2015 Jun; 26(6):1713-21. . View in PubMed
• The effects of PM25 and its components from indoor and outdoor sources on cough and wheeze symptoms in asthmatic children. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2014 Jul; 24(4):380-7. . View in PubMed
• Sources of indoor air pollution in New York City residences of asthmatic children J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2014 May-Jun; 24(3):269-78. . View in PubMed
• Deliberating Performance Targets: Follow-on workshop discussing PM10, NO2, CO, and SO2 air sensor targets Atmos Environ (1994). 2021; 246. . View in PubMed

• Gilliland, Frank
• McConnell, Rob
• Peters, Anne
• Breton, Carrie
• Eckel, Sandrah
• Garcia, Erika
• Finch, Caleb
• Fruin, Scott
• Gauderman, William
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• Liao, Jiawen