Expert Consultants
Dr. Atherton, a public health epidemiologist, has expertise in environmental health effects, disease surveillance and control, program evaluation and effectiveness, and healthcare services research. He specializes in patient health behaviors, vulnerable groups in the general population, and optimization of healthcare services delivery.
Dr. Atherton currently consults in the area of biohazard surveillance with the U. S. Department of Defense. Earlier, he worked on the surveillance of behavioral health needs among service members in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Earlier, Dr. Atherton was the manager of clinical research and biostatistics for WellPoint Health Plans, where he developed innovative measuring tools for tracking healthcare delivery among Medi-Cal beneficiaries.
Dr. Atherton has spent more than 20 years in public health practice. His achievements include: the establishment of behavioral risk factor surveillance systems and the development and enhancement of a statewide cancer registry, both in Nevada; the development of public health data systems for tracking birth outcomes among low-income women in California; the implementation and evaluation of after-school interventions for overweight adolescents in school districts in Virginia; and assistance with a hospital-based quality improvement research agenda for Inova Loudoun Hospital.
Dr. Atherton’s articles have appeared in Disease Management and Outcomes Research, the American Journal of Health Education, and the American Journal of Health Studies.
Dr. Atherton holds a doctorate of public health in health management and policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and masters of public health in epidemiology and statistics from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Mage has concentrated on statistical analyses of air pollutant concentrations and exposure assessments throughout his 25-year career with the Environmental Protection Agency. He served with the World Health Organization (WHO) for seven years as their air pollution exposure expert and was in charge of the Human Exposure Assessment Locations (HEAL) program. He also was a visiting professor of air pollution at the Technical University of Denmark and spent two years at the Harvard School of Public Health as a visiting scholar on air pollution.
Dr. Mage has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to the writing of the exposure chapters in recent Particulate Matter and Carbon Monoxide (CO) Air Quality Criteria Documents. He recently completed six years of service with the Institute for Survey Research at Temple University where he was Principal Investigator for both studies on the health effects of the 1991 Kuwait oil fires and analyses of pesticide exposures for the EPA OPPTS.
Dr. Mage holds a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, and he taught that discipline for a number of years at San José State University in California.
Dr. Steven P. Bayard has more than 30 years of experience in statistical analysis of health outcomes as well as a specialty in quantitative risk assessment of toxic chemical hazards. As a member of the faculties of Yale University and the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, he has taught graduate-level courses in statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology and demography. He has additional consulting experience in the design and analysis of clinical and pharmaceutical trials.
Dr. Bayard’s government service spans more than 32 years at three Federal regulatory agencies: the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. While at the EPA, Dr. Bayard authored published risk assessments for more than twenty chemicals, including Dioxin, asbestos, methylene chloride, nickel and nickel compounds, vinyl and vinylidene chloride, ethylene oxide, and cadmium.
Dr. Bayard’s international experience includes teaching risk assessment for the Pan American Health Organization and co-authorship of a World Health Organization report on health hazards of environmental tobacco smoke. He has published widely and has refereed for several journals for articles submitted for publication in these fields. At OSHA,
Dr. Bayard had more than six years’ experience in supervising U.S. government scientific experts in the health sciences and health risk assessment. He holds a doctorate in biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University and has completed graduate training in toxicology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.