Samuel Myers

Principal Research Scientist, Planetary Health

Department of Environmental Health

Research Interests:

Climate change. Human health impacts of large-scale, anthropogenic environmental change including climate change, land use change, and deterioration of ecosystem services. Consequences of large-scale environmental change to human nutrition and impact of food production systems on the environment.

In the News:

Radio Interviews
http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=17-P13-00040&segmentID=3 (PRI’s Living on Earth)

http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=15-P13-00030&segmentID=4 (PRI’s Living on Earth)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/08/310473928/less-nutritious-grains-may-be-in-our-future (NPR morning edition)

http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/2014/05/10/2014-05-10-1/ (Canadian Broadcast Company’s Quirks and Quarks)

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-08-30/rising-carbon-dioxide-levels-may-reduce-nutritional-value-important-foods (PRI’s Living on Earth)

Print Media

http://www.politico.com/agenda/issue/agenda-2020-health

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/haze-indonesia-forest-fires-killed-100000-people-harvard-study

http://89.31.102.21/ourplanet/Clear-and-Present-Danger

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/07/climate-change-food-crops-nutrition

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/rising-co2-levels-could-reduce-nutrition-values-of-staple-crops-like-wheat-rice-and-soy-9334097.html

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3030166/rising-co2-levels-find-new-ways-to-kill-

Related Publications:

Impacts of increasing atmospheric CO₂concentrations on human nutrition

Samuel S. Myers, Matthew R. Smith, Sarah Guth, Christopher D. Golden, Bapu Vaitla, Nathaniel D. Mueller, Alan D. Dangour, Peter Huybers. Climate Change and Global Food Systems: Potential Impacts on Food Security and Undernutrition. Annual Review of Public Health. 2017. 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031816-044356,

Dr Samuel S Myers, MD, K Ryan Wessells, PhD, Itai Kloog, PhD, Antonella Zanobetti, PhD, Prof Joel Schwartz, PhD. Effect of increased concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide on the global threat of zinc deficiency: a modelling study. The Lancet Global Health. 2015. 10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00093-5

Lee H. Dietterich, Antonella Zanobetti, Itai Kloog, Peter Huybers, Andrew D. B. Leakey, Arnold J. Bloom, Eli Carlisle, Nimesha Fernando, Glenn Fitzgerald, Toshihiro Hasegawa, N. Michele Holbrook, Randall L. Nelson, Robert Norton, Michael J. Ottman, Victor Raboy, Hidemitsu Sakai, Karla A. Sartor, Joel Schwartz, Saman Seneweera, Yasuhiro Usui, Satoshi Yoshinaga & Samuel S. Myers. Impacts of elevated atmospheric CO2 on nutrient content of important food crops. Scientific Data. 2015. 2:150036. doi:10.1038/sdata.2015.36

Samuel S. Myers, Antonella Zanobetti, Itai Kloog, Peter Huybers, Andrew D. B. Leakey, Arnold J. Bloom, Eli Carlisle, Lee H. Dietterich, Glenn Fitzgerald, Toshihiro Hasegawa, N. Michele Holbrook, Randall L. Nelson, Michael J. Ottman, Victor Raboy, Hidemitsu Sakai, Karla A. Sartor, Joel Schwartz, Saman Seneweera, Michael Tausz & Yasuhiro Usui. Increasing CO2 Threatens Human Nutrition. Nature. 2014. 510:139–142. doi:10.1038/nature13179

Impacts of land-use decisions on air pollution and mortality in SE Asia

Shannon N Koplitz, Loretta J Mickley, Miriam E Marlier, Jonathan J Buonocore, Patrick S Kim, Tianjia Liu, Melissa P Sulprizio, Ruth S DeFries, Daniel J Jacob, Joel Schwartz, Montira Pongsiri and Samuel S Myers. Public health impacts of the severe haze in Equatorial Asia in September–October 2015: demonstration of a new framework for informing fire management strategies to reduce downwind smoke exposure. Environmental Research Letters. 2016. 11:094023 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094023

Miriam E Marlier, Ruth S DeFries, Patrick S Kim, Shannon N Koplitz, Daniel J Jacob, Loretta J Mickley and Samuel S Myers. Fire emissions and regional air quality impacts from fires in oil palm, timber, and logging concessions in Indonesia. Environmental Research Letters. 2015. 10:085005 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/085005

Marlier, Miriam E., DeFries, Ruth S., Kim, Patrick S., Koplitz, Shannon N., Jacob, Daniel J., Mickley, Loretta J., Margono, Belinda A., Myers, Samuel S. Regional air quality impacts of future fire emissions in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Environmental Research Letters. 2015. 10:054010

Kim, P. S., Jacob, D. J., Mickley, L., Koplitz, S., Marlier, M. E., DeFries, R., Myers, S. S., Chew, B. N., Mao, Y.H. Sensitivity of population smoke exposure to fire locations in Equatorial Asia. Atmospheric Environment. 2015. 102: 11-17.

Impacts of global environmental change on nutrition

Golden CD, Seto KL, Dey MM, Chen OL, Gephart JA, Myers SS, Smith M, Vaitla B and Allison EH. Does Aquaculture Support the Needs of Nutritionally Vulnerable Nations?. 2017. Front. Mar. Sci. 4:159. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00159

Golden, C. D., Allison, E. H., Cheung, W. W. L., Dey, M. M., Halpern, B. S., McCauley, D. J., Smith, M., Vaitla, B., Zeller, D., and Myers, S. S. Fall in fish catch threatens human health. 2016. Nature 534, 317-320.

Smith MR, Micha R, Golden CD, Mozaffarian D, Myers SS. Global Expanded Nutrient Supply (GENuS) Model: A New Method for Estimating the Global Dietary Supply of Nutrients. PLoS ONE. 2016. 11(1): e0146976. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146976

Matthew R Smith, PhD, Gitanjali M Singh, PhD, Prof Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, Dr Samuel S Myers, MD. Effects of decreases of animal pollinators on human nutrition and global health: a modelling analysis. The Lancet. 2015. 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61085-6

Ellis, A., Myers, S. S., Ricketts, T. A. Do pollinators contribute to nutritional health?. PLOS One. 2015. 10(1): e114805. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0114805.

Perspectives on Planetary Health

Almada, A. A., C. D. Golden, S. A. Osofsky, and S. S. Myers. A case for Planetary Health/GeoHealth. 2017. GeoHealth, 1, doi:10.1002/2017GH000084.

Myers, Samuel S. Sea Change. The Lancet. 2016. 388: 2341-2.

Sarah Whitmee, Andy Haines, Chris Beyrer, Frederick Boltz, Anthony G Capon, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Alex Ezeh, Howard Frumkin, Peng Gong, Peter Head, Richard Horton, Georgina M Mace, Robert Marten, Samuel S Myers, Sania Nishtar, Steven A Osofsky, Subhrendu K Pattanayak, Montira J Pongsiri, Cristina Romanelli, Agnes Soucat, Jeanette Vega, Derek Yach. Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary health. The Lancet. 2015. S0140-6736(15)60901-1

Kent H. Redford, Samuel S. Myers, Taylor H. Ricketts, and Steven A. Osofsky. Human Health as a Judicious Conservation Opportunity. Conservation Biology(2014)

Samuel S. Myers, Lynne Gaffikin, Christopher D. Golden, Richard S. Ostfeld, Kent H. Redford, Taylor H. Ricketts, Will R. Turner, and Steven A. Osofsky. Human health impacts of ecosystem alteration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (2013)

Myers, Samuel S. and Bernstein, Aaron. The coming health crisis. The Scientist: 2011. 25 (1); 32-37. (2011)

Myers, Samuel S. Global Environmental Change: The Threat to Human Health. (2009)

Myers, Samuel S. and Patz, Jonathan A. Emerging threats to human health from global environmental change. Annual Review of Environment & Resources. 2009. 34:223–52. doi:10.1146/annurev.environ.033108.102650

Land use change and human health. (In Integrating Ecology and Poverty Reduction: Ecological Dimensions, Springer, 2012)

Climate change and human health. (In Integrating Ecology and Poverty Reduction: Ecological Dimensions, Springer, 2012)

Ecosystem service disruption and human health. (In Integrating Ecology and Poverty Reduction: Ecological Dimensions, Springer, 2012)

Land use and land use change. (In Encyclopedia of Environmental Health, Oxford, In press)