Emily Oken MD, MPH

Dr. Oken is a Professor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. Dr. Oken Directs the Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse within the department of Population Medicine. Her research focuses on the influence of nutrition and other modifiable factors during pregnancy and early childhood on long-term maternal and child health, especially cardiometabolic health and cognitive development. She has also led a number of studies examining predictors and sequelae of maternal overweight, weight gain, and related conditions such as gestational diabetes mellitus in the peripartum period. Her work on the toxicant risks and nutrient benefits of prenatal fish consumption has influenced national guidelines for fish consumption during pregnancy, helping to shift the previous focus of risk-only or benefit-only studies to a broader emphasis on the overall health effects of fish consumption for mother and baby.

She has also published widely on perinatal influences on child health including asthma and atopy. In support of this work, she has led longitudinal studies commencing in the peripartum period and following mothers and children throughout childhood. She is Principal Investigator of Project Viva, a unique US pre-birth cohort study that has followed pregnant women and their children since 1999. She is also PI and a co-leader of the team assessing cardio-metabolic, respiratory, and neurocognitive outcome measures on children enrolled 1996-7 in the Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT), a cluster-randomized trial of breastfeeding promotion in the Republic of Belarus. She has served on committees to develop maternal nutrition guidelines both nationally and internationally.