Jorge E. Chavarro

About

Jorge E. Chavarro is a Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with additional roles as a Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Epidemiology and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on understanding how nutritional and lifestyle factors influence human reproduction and reproductive milestones throughout the life course, with a primary emphasis on human fertility. Over the last decade, his work has expanded to explore how reproductive events impact health throughout life, including long-term health consequences of exposures and events before and during pregnancy. Chavarro has developed and utilized population-based and hospital-based epidemiologic studies to examine the relationship between nutrition and fertility, identifying nutritional risk factors for infertility and related conditions such as endometriosis, spontaneous abortion, and ectopic pregnancy. His research also investigates how pre-treatment diet influences success rates in infertility treatments. Additionally, his work includes studying the long-term health effects of reproductive traits, fertility, and pregnancy complications on women’s health after pregnancy, especially during menopause. To support his research, he has established infrastructure platforms like the Nurses’ Health Study 3, a prospective cohort study of over 50,000 young women, and has contributed to modifying related cohort studies to facilitate life course…

Research topics

• Medicine
• Environmental health
• Demography
• Internal medicine
• Family medicine
• Gerontology
• Biology
• Genetics

Selected publications

• Risk of COVID-19 among front-line health-care workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study

  The Lancet Public Health · 2020 · 2291 citations

  BACKGROUND: Data for front-line health-care workers and risk of COVID-19 are limited. We sought to assess risk of COVID-19 among front-line health-care workers compared with the general community and the effect of personal protective equipment (PPE) on risk. METHODS: We did a prospective, observational cohort study in the UK and the USA of the general community, including front-line health-care workers, using self-reported data from the COVID Symptom Study smartphone application (app) from March…

  DOI

• Rapid implementation of mobile technology for real-time epidemiology of COVID-19

  Science · 2020-05-05 · 410 citations

  articleOpen access

  The rapid pace of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) presents challenges to the robust collection of population-scale data to address this global health crisis. We established the COronavirus Pandemic Epidemiology (COPE) Consortium to unite scientists with expertise in big data research and epidemiology to develop the COVID Symptom Study, previously known as the COVID Symptom Tracker, mobile application. This ap…

  PublisherDOI

• Identification of 371 genetic variants for age at first sex and birth linked to externalising behaviour

  Nature Human Behaviour · 2021 · 161 citations

  DOI

• Dietary patterns and PFAS plasma concentrations in childhood: Project Viva, USA

  Environment International · 2021 · 64 citations

  BACKGROUND: Diet is thought to account for most adult human exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Children are particularly vulnerable to adverse health effects of PFAS and may have different eating habits than adults. However, studies of dietary patterns and PFAS in children are limited. METHODS: We studied 548 Boston-area children with food frequency questionnaire data (89 food items) in early childhood (median age 3.3 years) and plasma concentrations of 6 PFAS quantified in…

  DOI

• Adolescent “Lean PCOS” Is Characterized by Higher Insulin Resistance and Adverse Adipokine Profile

  The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism · 2025-12-03 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Although polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with high body mass index (BMI), less is known about the cardiometabolic manifestations of PCOS without excess adiposity. Among female adolescents enrolled in the Project Viva longitudinal prebirth cohort, we characterized growth, adiposity, and cardiometabolic biomarkers among those with vs without PCOS, stratified by BMI category. METHODS: We defined PCOS at the mid-teen visit (mean age 17.7 years) as self-reported diagnosis or…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• A lifecourse approach to women's cardiometabolic and bone health: from fertility to perimenopause

  NIH · $80k · 2019–2024

• Integrating lifecourse approaches, biologic and digital phenotypes in support of heart and lung disease epidemiologic research

  NIH · $2.3M · 2019–2026

• A lifecourse approach to women's cardiometabolic and bone health: from fertility to perimenopause

  NIH · $3.6M · 2019–2025

Frequent coauthors

• Russ Hauser

  415 shared

• Audrey J. Gaskins

  Emory University

  404 shared

• Janet W. Rich‐Edwards

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  343 shared

• Stacey A. Missmer

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  291 shared

• Irene Souter

  Massachusetts General Hospital

  271 shared

• Lidia Mínguez‐Alarcón

  Harvard University

  259 shared

• Frank B. Hu

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  226 shared

• Cuilin Zhang

  213 shared

Education

• ScD - Nutrition and Epidemiology

  Harvard School of Public Health

  2006

• ScM - Epidemiology

  Harvard School of Public Health

  2003

• MD

  Universidad Nacional de Colombia

  2002

Similar researchers at Harvard University

• Alberto Ascherioh-171
• Lisa Berkmanh-144
• Andrea Baccarellih-131