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Judith Green McKenzie, M.D., M.P.H.

Chief, Division of Occupational & Environmental Medicine
Professor (PAR) of Medicine

Locations

The Johns Hopkins Hospital

1830 E. Monument Street
9th Floor
Baltimore, MD 21287 map

Background

Dr. McKenzie serves as Executive Director for Health, Safety and Environment for Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins Health System. Additionally, she is Division Director for Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM) and Professor (PAR) of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine. She was previously Division Chief and Professor OEM at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Penn Medicine’s OEM Residency Program Director.

Trained in both Occupational Medicine and Internal Medicine, Dr. McKenzie received an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.D. from Yale School of Medicine, and an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins where she also completed an OEM Fellowship and the Epidemiology Research Track. She was honored by the American College of OEM (ACOEM) with its 2015 International Lifetime Kehoe Achievement Award for Excellence in Education and Research. Additional key achievements include: election to the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society (2020); being selected Fellow of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM®) Program for Women (2021); induction to the Academy of Master Clinicians (2021), Penn Medicine’s highest clinical honor; being selected by the State Department to lead coordinated care to US diplomats injured in Havana, Cuba, & China, and presented with a Medallion in appreciation for this work; serving as a featured expert on Philadelphia’s NBC-10 to debunking myths contributing to COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy; being named to the inaugural Top Women in Safety (2021); and listed as one of America’s top doctors and Top OEM physicians.

Author of over 130 scientific publications, Dr. McKenzie's research focuses on work as a social determinant of health, OEM exposures and illnesses, heat related illness consequent to climate change, cost of work disability, graduate medical education, and employee wellness/burnout. She is the invited author of 27th edition of Goldman-Cecil Textbook of Medicine, Principles of OEM chapter and among the top 10% most cited preventive medicine physicians in 2021. Dr. McKenzie developed the first Train-in-Place Residency Program in the nation, successfully competing for funding to make it America’s largest civilian OEM residency. Graduates comprise ~8% of American Board of Preventive Medicine (PM) - OEM diplomates over the past decade. Chair of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education PM Review Committee, she has chaired several National Academy of Science, Engineering & Medicine committees, served on the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Board of Scientific Counselors and Study Sections and sits on the Journal of OEM Editorial Board.

Titles

Chief, Division of Occupational & Environmental Medicine
Executive Director of Health, Safety and Environment for Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System
Professor (PAR) of Medicine

Departments / Divisions

Medicine - Occupational and Environmental Medicine

Education

Degrees

M.P.H.; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Maryland) (1996)
B.A.; Princeton University (New Jersey) (1983)
M.D.; Yale University School of Medicine (Connecticut) (1987)

Research & Publications

Research Summary

Dr. McKenzie's research focuses on OEM outcomes and work as a social determinant of health with the goal to improve worker and community health, safety, and well-being and to prevent disability. Main areas are occupational and environmental illness and exposures; the cost and management of work disability; undergraduate and graduate medical education; employee wellness, burnout and resiliency, and prevention; and mitigation of OEM hazards such as hazardous drugs, infectious diseases like SARS-CoV-2, toxins like lead, and environmental hazards like heat-related illness consequent to Climate Change. Much of her scholarly work has influenced policy, impacting thousands of workers.

Her successful intervention to reduce heat-related illness (HRI) in outdoor workers in Texas [JOEM 61(9)2019] led to testimony in Congress regarding the utility and importance of an OSHA Heat Standard toward prevention of HRI and informed the CDC informational pamphlet on employee HRI prevention. She co-authored the premier national OEM society (ACOEM) Position Statement on Prevention of Heat-Related Illness [JOEM 63(10) 2021]. As Editor of the JOEM Forum section she featured in a series on Climate Change [JOEM 2019)]. In another environmental effort, when residents of the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale region reported health effects they attributed to environmental exposures because of fracking activities in their community, her team investigatedusing pilot funding from the UPenn Center of Excellence for Environmental Toxicology. Their research, one of the first to highlight community health complaints, resulted in development of a registry of such complaints. [IJERPH 11(6)2014]. Her work on opioids and workplace safety informed CDC guidance [JOEM 11(59)2017].

Dr. McKenzie's intervention study on the effectiveness of safe needle devices provided evidence for The Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act (NSPA), mandating the use of safe needle devices. [ICHE 28(2)2007]. Another key insight of her research that long working hours were associated with increased needlestick and splash injuries to housestaff, supported The American Council on Graduate Education Duty Hour Rule, which reduced the number of hours residents can work [ICHE 28(1)2007]. These findings supported national data and were instrumental in driving strategic interventions that optimize the use of safe needle devices locally at UPenn.

Poorly controlled and escalating workers compensation costs are a major current concern for many states. Dr. McKenzie developed a national reputation for work on worker's compensation (WC) outcomes, showing the value of case management on improving WC cost outcomes [JOEM 40(6)1998; JOEM 44(12)2002]. She edited and made numerous contributions to a major volume, Managing Workers Compensation Costs [Elsevier Saunders, 4(2)2004]. This text became widely used by insurance and workers’ compensation authorities, and by practitioners in Occupational Medicine, Nursing and Safety. Her work on the ACOEM OEM Core Competencies Taskforce has guided national ACGME and local Program Directors OEM curricula [JOEM 63(7)2021; JOEM 56(5)2014].

She continues to investigate root causes for the shortage of OEM specialists, documented by the NAM since 1988. Her research, presented nationally, shows that the ongoing shortage of OEM specialists is partially due to limited exposure in medical school, in addition to lack of funding and training accessibility limitations [JPHMP Suppl 3:(6) 2021; JGME 9(5)2017]. She chaired the 2021 Future of OEM Presidential Task Force charged with further investigating this important issue and salient recommendations were made.

Technology Expertise Keywords

workers' compensation costs, safety, employee health, occupational injury, environmental health, work disability, graduate medical education; employee wellness, burnout and resiliency, prevention, occupational infectious disease, heat related illness

Selected Publications

EJ Bernacki, DL Hunt, NF Tsourmas, L Yuspeh, RA Lavin, N Kalia, Attributes of Long Duration COVID-19 Workers' Compensation Claims from 36 US States. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2022 Feb 15

G Vanichkachorn, J Green-McKenzie, E Emmett, Occupational health care, Family Medicine: Principles and Practice, 625-640 2022/1/1

J Green-McKenzie, FS Shofer, J Matthei, R Biester, M Deibler, Clinical and Psychological Factors Associated with Return to Work Among United States Diplomats who sustained a work-related injury while on assignment in Cuba, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2021/12/9

J Green-McKenzie, FS Shofer, F Momplaisir, BJ Kuter, G Kruse, U Bialal, Factors Associated With COVID-19 Vaccine Receipt by Health Care Personnel at a Major Academic Hospital During the First Months of Vaccine Availability, JAMA network open 4 (12), e2136582-e2136582 2021/12/1

B Mansfield, FS Shofer, J Green-McKenzie, The Effect of Introduction of Motorized Stretchers on Hospital-Based Patient Transporter Injuries and Resultant Workers’ Compensation Costs, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 63 (12), 1078-1080 2021/12/1

Contact for Research Inquiries

Department of Medicine
1830 E. Monument Street
Room 9052
Baltimore, MD 21205 map

Academic Affiliations & Courses

Graduate Program Affiliation

Mentor to Summer Undergraduate Minority Research Program (SUMR) Scholar: Summer research program in health services research at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics at Wharton School. LDI SUMR Scholar

Courses and Syllabi

Course creator and director: Clinical Occupational Medicine: A course for OEM residents where experts teach on various clinical entities relevant to OEM
1999
Course creator and director: Critical Review of the OEM Literature: A yearlong course for OEM residents to teach them how to critically evaluate the medical literature
1999
Course creator and director: Occupational Epidemiology: Teach a series of review lectures to residents with pre-requisite of introduction to biostatistics and introduction to epidemiology. Created syllabus and taught with invited speakers.
1999
Course creator and director: Population Based Occupational Medicine: A 6-month course for Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM) teaching them about treating, managing, and assessing populations while focusing on prevention and applying epidemiology and biostatistics tools. A substantial, mentored, experiential project utilizing tools acquired is required at the end of the course. Taught residents to apply epidemiology and biostatistics tools.
1999
Course creator and director: Disaster Management and Emergency Preparedness: Course Co-director. Designed to provide OEM residents the opportunity to enhance skills in this area and develop the capacity to create a workplace program or improve upon existing programs
2012
Course creator and director: Industrial Hygiene II: Co-director for course. Created rotation where residents have didactic and experiential safety (biological, chemical & Radiological), ergonomics, and overall industrial hygiene training
2012
Course creator and director: Mindfulness, Leadership, Resiliency and Team building: Created and taught with invited speakers on this topic with experiential learning
2012
Course creator and director: Research Methods Course & Second Year Project: Course Co-director, with a biostatistician, designed to provide tools to OEM residents such that they are equipped to produce mentored research, to prepare abstracts for submission and for presentation at national and international presentation, and to prepare manuscripts for publication
2012
Course creator and director: Faculty Connect: A course for underrepresented in medicine (UIM) faculty to increase social connectedness while increasing personal resiliency
2019 - 2021

Activities & Honors

Honors

Selected to Coalition of 100 Black Women Role Model Program, Princeton University, 1982
Frederick Douglass Prize for Leadership and Scholarship, Princeton University, 1983
Neuroscience Fellowship Award, Yale University School of Medicine, 1986
Summer Research Fellowship Award to National Institutes of Health, Yale University School of Medicine, 1986
Commonwealth Research Fellow, Yale University School of Medicine, 1987
Travel Research Fellowship Award to Kenya, Yale University School of Medicine, 1987
Best Project Award in Advanced Biostatistics-Modeling, Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, 1995
Resident Research Award for Manuscript on Workers’ Compensation Costs, ACOEM, 1997
America's Top Physicians, Consumer Research Council of America, 2003
Lifetime Achievement Award, Marquis Who’s Who, 2003
Kehoe Lifetime Achievement Award for Education and Research, American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine ((ACOEM) An international award), 2015
UPHS Quality and Safety Award, University of Pennsylvania Health System. UPHS, 2015
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society- Elected Full Member, 2020
Wharton Certificate of Professional Development (CBD Circle), 2020
The Academy of Master Clinicians, Perelman School of Medicine, Penn Medicine, 2021
ELAM- Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM®), Class of 2022, 2021
Named one of America’s Top Women in Safety, recognized as one of the industry’s most trailblazing women, by the American Occupational Safety, 2021
Presented Department of State Medallion, “Extended Care Program: Helping our Wounded Heal”, in appreciation for provision of specialized care to US diplomats injured in Havana, Cuba - Operational Award: Employee Hypertension Program, 2021

Memberships

Member, American Board of Preventive Medicine Examination Committee, Annual Meetings-Chicago IL

Videos & Media

Lectures and Presentations

Green-McKenzie J, Parkerson J, Bernacki E: A comparison of workers’ compensation costs for two cohorts of workers before and after managed care. May 1999. Resident Research Award. Manuscript published in JOEM
oral
Doctor Heal Thyself: Recognizing hazards in the workplace. (A clinical vignette). Oral Presentation at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine, Boston, MA, 2000 May
oral
The effect of management attitudes and availability of protective equipment on infection control practices among correctional health care workers. Oral Presentation with Gershon R, Karakashian C. Current Research in Occupational and Environmental Medicine Session 2305 at 87th Annual American Occupational Health Conference, Chicago, IL, 2002 Apr
oral
Emmett E, Green-McKenzie J: Community and workplace-based training program for occupational medicine. NORA Symposium 2006: Research Makes a Difference. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control. 2006 Apr; 312, 313
oral
Green-McKenzie J, Shofer F: Duration of time on shift prior to accidental blood or body fluid exposure for housestaff, nurses and technicians. NORA Symposium 2006: Research Makes a Difference. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control. 2006 Apr;157, 158
oral
Saberi P, McKenzie J, Powers M, Emmett E, Propert K: Field survey of health perception and complaints of Pennsylvania residents in marcellus shale regions. Annual American Occupational Health Conf. 2013 May. Notes: Orlando, Florida. Resident mentored research. Manuscript published in Int J Env Res Pub Hlth. Resident Research Award
oral
Diba R, Shofer F, Green-McKenzie. The effects of a 30-day limited duty policy change on time to completion of a return to work program for fire and emergency medical service members", Annual American Occupational Health Conference, Orlando, Florida, with May 2013. Resident Mentored Research, Resident Research Award
oral
Kalliny M, Shofer F, Green-McKenzie J. Obstructive Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Syndrome Among Professional Drivers", Annual American Occupational Health conference, Chicago Illinois. April 2016. Resident mentored research. Awarded annual ACOEM Resident Research Award.
oral
Brewer-McCarthy R, Green-McKenzie J: Occupational body fluid exposures in health care workers at a university hospital: a three-year retrospective study. National Occup Health Conf. Aug 2011. Resident Mentored Research. Abstract published in BM
oral
Lappin M, Cohen E, O'Conner D, Shofer F, Savul S, Green-McKenzie J. Perceptions regarding availability and use of PPE among US Healthcare Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Mid-Atlantic Regional Conf in Occupational & Environmental Medicine. 2020 Oct. Notes: (Virtual Conference).
oral
Matthei J, Shofer F, Beister R, Deibler M, Green-McKenzie J. Clinical and Psychological Factors Associated with Return to Work Among United States Diplomats who experienced Uncharacterized Exposures while on Work Assignment in Havana, Cuba. Resident Mentored Research. Accepted for Oral Presentation & recipient of Resident Research Award but conference 2019, cancelled due to COVID-19.
oral
Emmett EA, Lewis P, Green-McKenzie J. Training Physicians to Work with Communities and on Environmental Justice Issues. Oral Presentation with EA Emmett and P Lewis at the 137th APHA Annual Meeting, Philadelphia PA, 2009 Feb
oral
Berestnev K, Moffitt G, Shofer F, Vancil D, Green-McKenzie J: Effect of the introduction of a standardized fitness-for-duty evaluation of commercial truck drivers on the incidence of low back injuries and workers' compensation costs. International Conf on Occupational Health. 2011 Apr. Notes: International Presentation in Cancun, Mexico. Resident mentored research. Published in JOEM.
oral
Green-McKenzie J, Brewer R, Shofer F: Characterization of occupational blood and body fluid exposures at a university hospital after the needlestick safety and prevention act International Conf on Occupational Health 2011 Apr. Notes: International Presentation in Cancun, Mexico. Published in BMJ.
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Recent News Articles and Media Coverage

COVID-19 Vaccine arrives at Penn, Penn Medicine (2020)

COVID-19 vaccine mRNA Biology Pioneers, Drew Weissman, MD, PhD & Katalin Kariko, PhD, whose foundational enabled vaccine development - being administered vaccine by Judith Green-McKenzie. Penn Medicine News 2020 Notes (December 23, 2020)

COVID-19 Vaccine Myth Busters: How Safe Is the Coronavirus Vaccine? NBC10 Philadelphia January 14, 2021

COVID-19 Vaccine Myth Busters: Can the Coronavirus Vaccine Impact Fertility? NBC10 Philadelphia News (January 14, 2021)

COVID-19 Vaccine Myth Busters: Talking About Asymptomatic & Allergic COVID-19 Cases. NBC10 Philadelphia (January 15, 2021)

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