Hagit Hochner, PhD

International Atherosclerosis Society Visiting Scientist,Hagit Hochner
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Lecturer, Braun School of Public Health, Hebrew University, Israel

Address
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
677 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115

Email hhochner@hsph.harvard.edu

hagith@ekmd.huji.ac.il

Research Interests
My research interests lie in the field of genetic epidemiology, focusing on genetic and environmental risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic traits and diseases. I have a particular interest in the concept of “Developmental Origins of Health and Disease”, and for the past several years I have been studying the effects of early life exposures on adult cardiometabolic health, and the underlying genetic and epigenetic mechanisms (e.g. parent-of-origin genetic mechanisms). My scientific work has been largely based on the Jerusalem Perinatal Study (JPS), a 1964-76 birth cohort of all 92,408 births to Israeli residents of West Jerusalem during this period. The JPS uniquely combines detailed archival records obtained at birth with comprehensive long-term follow-up data, to investigate the effects of pre-, peri- and postnatal characteristics on offspring and parental health at various points in the life course. At the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, I am currently working with the GRAPE team on data from the Pregnancy Outcomes, Maternal and Infant Study (PrOMIS), a pregnancy cohort of Peruvian women, aiming to understand how childhood abuse, partner abuse, and related psycho-social factors are associated with pregnancy outcomes. Using data from both JPS and PrOMIS, we will investigate complementing aspects of the association of exposure to intrauterine physical and psychological stress with cardiometabolic disease and assess the role of psycho-social and genetic factors in these associations.

Selected Publications

  1. Moore, A., H. Hochner, C.M. Sitlani, M.A. Williams, A.N. Hoofnagle, I.H. de Boer, B. Kestenbaum, D.S. Siscovick, Y. Friedlander, and D.A. Enquobahrie, Plasma vitamin D is associated with fasting insulin and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance in young adult males, but not females, of the Jerusalem Perinatal Study. Public Health Nutr, 2015. 18(7): p. 1324-31.
  2. Lawrence, G.M., D.S. Siscovick, R. Calderon-Margalit, D.A. Enquobahrie, E. Granot-Hershkovitz, S. Harlap, O. Manor, V. Meiner, O. Paltiel, P.Y. Kwok, Y. Friedlander, and H. Hochner. Cohort Profile: The Jerusalem Perinatal Family Follow-Up Study. Int J Epidemiol, 2015.
  3. Wander, P.L., H. Hochner, C.M. Sitlani, D.A. Enquobahrie, T. Lumley, G.M. Lawrence, A. Burger, B. Savitsky, O. Manor, V. Meiner, S. Hesselson, P.Y. Kwok, D.S. Siscovick, and Y. Friedlander, Maternal genetic variation accounts in part for the associations of maternal size during pregnancy with offspring cardiometabolic risk in adulthood. PLoS One, 2014. 9(3): p. e91835.
  4. Lawrence, G.M., S. Shulman, Y. Friedlander, C.M. Sitlani, A. Burger, B. Savitsky, E. Granot-Hershkovitz, T. Lumley, P.Y. Kwok, S. Hesselson, D. Enquobahrie, P.L. Wander, O. Manor, D.S. Siscovick, and H. Hochner. Associations of maternal pre-pregnancy and gestational body size with offspring longitudinal change in BMI. Obesity (Silver Spring), 2014. 22(4): p. 1165-71.
  5. Dior, U.P., G.M. Lawrence, C. Sitlani, D. Enquobahrie, O. Manor, D.S. Siscovick, Y. Friedlander, and H. Hochner. Parental smoking during pregnancy and offspring cardio-metabolic risk factors at ages 17 and 32. Atherosclerosis, 2014. 235(2): p. 430-7.
  6. Avery, C.L., C.M. Sitlani, D.E. Arking, D.K. Arnett, J.C. Bis, E. Boerwinkle, B.M. Buckley, Y.D. Ida Chen, A.J. de Craen, M. Eijgelsheim, D. Enquobahrie, D.S. Evans, I. Ford, M.E. Garcia, V. Gudnason, T.B. Harris, S.R. Heckbert, H. Hochner, A. Hofman, W.C. Hsueh, A. Isaacs, J.W. Jukema, P. Knekt, J.A. Kors, B.P. Krijthe, K. Kristiansson, M. Laaksonen, Y. Liu, X. Li, P.W. Macfarlane, C. Newton-Cheh, M.S. Nieminen, B.A. Oostra, G.M. Peloso, K. Porthan, K. Rice, F.F. Rivadeneira, J.I. Rotter, V. Salomaa, N. Sattar, D.S. Siscovick, P.E. Slagboom, A.V. Smith, N. Sotoodehnia, D.J. Stott, B.H. Stricker, T. Sturmer, S. Trompet, A.G. Uitterlinden, C. van Duijn, R.G. Westendorp, J.C. Witteman, E.A. Whitsel, and B.M. Psaty, Drug-gene interactions and the search for missing heritability: a cross-sectional pharmacogenomics study of the QT interval. Pharmacogenomics J, 2014. 14(1): p. 6-13.
  7. Lin, D., C.R. Weinberg, R. Feng, H. Hochner, and J. Chen, A multi-locus likelihood method for assessing parent-of-origin effects using case-control mother-child pairs. Genet Epidemiol, 2013. 37(2): p. 152-62.
  8. Dior, U.P., H. Hochner, Y. Friedlander, R. Calderon-Margalit, D. Jaffe, A. Burger, M. Avgil, O. Manor, and U. Elchalal, Association between number of children and mortality of mothers: results of a 37-year follow-up study. Ann Epidemiol, 2013. 23(1): p. 13-8.
  9. Hochner, H., Y. Friedlander, R. Calderon-Margalit, V. Meiner, Y. Sagy, M. Avgil-Tsadok, A. Burger, B. Savitsky, D.S. Siscovick, and O. Manor, Associations of maternal prepregnancy body mass index and gestational weight gain with adult offspring cardiometabolic risk factors: the Jerusalem Perinatal Family Follow-up Study. Circulation, 2012. 125(11): p. 1381-9.
  10. Chen, J., D. Lin, and H. Hochner, Semiparametric maximum likelihood methods for analyzing genetic and environmental effects with case-control mother-child pair data. Biometrics, 2012. 68(3): p. 869-77.
  11. Tsadok, M.A., Y. Friedlander, O. Paltiel, O. Manor, V. Meiner, H. Hochner, Y. Sagy, N. Sharon, S. Yazdgerdi, D. Siscovick, and U. Elchalal, Obesity and blood pressure in 17-year-old offspring of mothers with gestational diabetes: insights from the Jerusalem Perinatal Study. Exp Diabetes Res, 2011. 2011: p. 906154.
  12. Friedlander, Y., O. Manor, O. Paltiel, V. Meiner, N. Sharon, R. Calderon, H. Hochner, Y. Sagy, M. Avgil, S. Harlap, and D.S. Siscovick, Birth weight of offspring, maternal pre-pregnancy characteristics, and mortality of mothers: the Jerusalem perinatal study cohort. Ann Epidemiol, 2009. 19(2): p. 112-7.
  13. Weiss-Salz, I., S. Harlap, Y. Friedlander, L. Kaduri, E. Levy-Lahad, R. Yanetz, L. Deutsch, H. Hochner, and O. Paltiel, Ethnic ancestry and increased paternal age are risk factors for breast cancer before the age of 40 years. Eur J Cancer Prev, 2007. 16(6): p. 549-54.
  14. Paltiel, O., Y. Friedlander, L. Deutsch, R. Yanetz, R. Calderon-Margalit, E. Tiram, H. Hochner, M. Barchana, S. Harlap, and O. Manor, The interval between cancer diagnosis among mothers and offspring in a population-based cohort. Fam Cancer, 2007. 6(1): p. 121-9.