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Health Assessment and Translation

Andrew Rooney, Ph.D., is acting Chief of the Integrative Health Assessments Branch of the Division of Translational Toxicology (DTT) at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). He is an active and accountable leader, supporting staff and leveraging branch expertise to address challenging public health questions through the development of impactful systematic reviews and evidence maps.

In addition to publishing environmental health assessments, Rooney is thought leader in the field, actively involved in developing risk assessment methods, systematic review guidance, and advanced informatics approaches throughout his professional career. He led the team that developed the OHAT Approach to systematic review and evidence integration – a key step in bringing systematic review methods into toxicology and environmental health. Rooney has co-authored over 100 contributions to the peer-reviewed literature and government assessments such as NTP Monographs, EPA IRIS Toxicological Reviews, and WHO Guidelines. He has also served on expert committees for U.S. and international organizations including the EPA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals, National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, European Food Safety Authority, and World Health Organization's Chemical Risk Assessment Network.

Rooney received his Sc.B. in Biology with Honors from Brown University and completed his graduate training at the University of Florida, earning a M.S. and Ph.D. in Zoology. He was awarded a National Research Grant of Canada and completed postdoctoral fellowships in immunotoxicology at both the University of Quebec, INRS-SANTÉ and the US EPA. He later joined the US EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System Staff, where he served as a health scientist and Team Leader before joining NIEHS to work with NTP in 2009.

Selected Publications

  1. National Toxicology Program. 2024. NTP monograph on the state of the science concerning fluoride exposure and neurodevelopment and cognition: a systematic review. NTP Monogr (8):NTP-MGRAPH-8. [Abstract]
  2. Mansouri K, Taylor K, Auerbach S, Ferguson S, Frawley R, Hsieh JH, Jahnke G, Kleinstreuer N, Mehta S, Moreira-Filho JT, Parham F, Rider C, Rooney AA, Wang A, Sutherland V. 2024. Unlocking the Potential of Clustering and Classification Approaches: Navigating Supervised and Unsupervised Chemical Similarity. Environ Health Perspect 132(8):85002. [Abstract]
  3. Mathisen GH, Bearth A, Jones LB, Hoffmann S, Vist GE, Ames HM, Husøy T, Svendsen C, Tsaioun K, Ashikaga T, Bloch D, Cavoski A, Chiu WA, Davies HG, Giusti A, Hartung T, Hirabayashi Y, Hogberg HT, Joglekar R, Kojima H, Krishnan K, Kwon S, Osborne OJ, Roggen E, Rooney AA, Rousselle C, Sass JB, Sepai O, Simanainen U, Thayer KA, Tong W, Wikoff D, Wright F, Whaley P. 2024. Time for CHANGE: system-level interventions for bringing forward the date of effective use of NAMs in regulatory toxicology. Arch Toxicol 98(8):2299-2308. [Abstract]
  4. Walker VR, Lemeris CR, Magnuson K, Sibrizzi CA, Shipkowski KA, Taylor KW, Rooney AA. 2024. I-REFF diagrams: enhancing transparency in systematic review through interactive reference flow diagrams. Syst Rev 13(1):33. [Abstract]
  5. Taylor KW, Howdeshell KL, Bommarito PA, Sibrizzi CA, Blain RB, Magnuson K, Lemeris C, Tracy W, Baird DD, Jackson CL, Gaston SA, Rider CV, Walker VR, Rooney AA. 2023. Systematic evidence mapping informs a class-based approach to assessing personal care products and pubertal timing. Environ Int 181:108307. [Abstract]
  6. Singh A, Lawler CP, Walker VR, Pelch KE, Garton AE, Rooney AA, Haugen AC. Becoming aWARE: 2023. The Development of a Web-Based Tool for Autism Research and the Environment. J Xenobiot 13(3):492-499. [Abstract]
  7. Howdeshell KL, Beverly BEJ, Blain RB, Goldstone AE, Hartman PA, Lemeris CR, Newbold RR, Rooney AA, Bucher JR. 2023. Evaluating endocrine disrupting chemicals: A perspective on the novel assessments in CLARITY-BPA. Birth Defects Res 115(15):1345-1397. [Abstract]
  8. Walker VR, Schmitt CP, Wolfe MS, Nowak AJ, Kulesza K, Williams AR, Shin R, Cohen J, Burch D, Stout MD, Shipkowski KA, Rooney AA. 2022. Evaluation of a semi-automated data extraction tool for public health literature-based reviews: Dextr. Environ Int 159:107025. [Abstract]
  9. Germolec DR, Lebrec H, Anderson SE, Burleson GR, Cardenas A, Corsini E, Elmore SE, Kaplan BLF, Lawrence BP, Lehmann GM, Maier CC, McHale CM, Myers LP, Pallardy M, Rooney AA, Zeise L, Zhang L, Smith MT. 2022. Consensus on the Key Characteristics of Immunotoxic Agents as a Basis for Hazard Identification. Environ Health Perspect 130(10):105001. [Abstract]
  10. Rooney AA, Cooper GS, Jahnke GD, Lam J, Morgan RL, Boyles AL, Ratcliffe JM, Kraft AD, Schünemann HJ, Schwingl P, Walker TD, Thayer KA, Lunn RM. 2016. How credible are the study results? Evaluating and applying internal validity tools to literature-based assessments of environmental health hazards. Environ Int 92-93:617-29. [Abstract]
  11. Rooney AA, Boyles AL, Wolfe MS, Bucher JR, Thayer KA. 2014. Systematic review and evidence integration for literature-based environmental health science assessments. Environ Health Perspect 122(7):711-8. [Abstract]