Kipruto Kirwa, PhD

Kipruto Kirwa, MPH, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. He earned a PhD in epidemiology from Brown University and completed postdoctoral training in environmental epidemiology at Tufts University and the University of Washington. His research bridges exposure science, environmental epidemiology, reproductive health, and cardiorespiratory health to understand how environmental factors shape health outcomes across the lifespan, with a focus on women’s health, pregnant women, developing fetuses, older adults, and lung health. Dr. Kirwa combines advanced exposure assessment methods with large-scale epidemiologic studies to quantify health risks and identify intervention opportunities. His work spans the development and integration of high-resolution models for both indoor and outdoor air pollutants, implementation of community-based environmental monitoring, and translation of exposure data into actionable public health strategies. Through collaborations with major cohort studies, including Pregnancy Study Online (PRESTO), Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), and Subpopulations and Intermediate Outcomes in COPD (SPIROMICS), he characterizes complex environmental exposures and their impacts on reproductive, cardiovascular, and respiratory health. He teaches classes in Exposure Science, Applied Methods for Population Health, and Introductory and Intermediate Epidemiology.

Dr Kirwa’s research areas include:

Air Quality and Women’s Health
Dr. Kirwa pioneers research on residential indoor air quality during pregnancy, aiming to understand how the environments where pregnant women spend most of their time affect their health and fetal development. His work seeks to characterize indoor pollutant exposures, identify modifiable household factors that influence air quality, and develop integrated exposure models that capture the full spectrum of environmental risks during pregnancy. This research provides an empirical foundation for household-level interventions that can protect maternal and fetal health even in the absence of large-scale policy changes.

Advanced Exposure Assessment Methods
Dr. Kirwa develops, validates, and applies cutting-edge approaches for estimating human exposure to environmental pollutants at fine spatial and temporal resolution, including air pollutants and extreme-weather-related exposures. He works on spatiotemporal models that achieve high predictive performance while maintaining computational efficiency; frameworks for integrating indoor and outdoor exposure estimates; and protocols for participant-operated environmental monitoring at scale. These tools, if successfully implemented across diverse populations and geographic regions, can enable more accurate quantification of exposure-disease relationships and reduce misclassification that has historically obscured our understanding of the health effects of environmental agents.

Environmental Determinants of Birth Outcomes
Dr. Kirwa investigates how air pollution and other environmental exposures influence fertility, pregnancy outcomes, and early life health. His research aims to identify critical developmental windows during which environmental exposures pose the greatest risk, examine how these effects vary across different populations, and elucidate the pathways through which pollutants impact reproductive success. Through analyses in preconception cohorts, this work reveals how environmental factors shape health even before pregnancy begins. This research informs clinical guidelines and public health interventions aimed at reducing the burden of preterm birth, low birthweight, impaired fetal development, and pregnancy loss.

Air Quality and Cardiorespiratory Health
Dr. Kirwa examines how ambient and indoor air pollutants affect respiratory and cardiovascular function across diverse populations. Working with cohorts including MESA Air and SPIROMICS Air, he investigates how air pollution impacts both healthy adults and those with existing respiratory conditions. This work extends to cardiovascular outcomes, aiming to understand the mechanisms by which air pollutants affect heart failure incidence and cardiac function. By linking sophisticated exposure assessment with clinical outcomes, this work seeks to provide critical evidence for air quality standards and targeted interventions to protect cardiorespiratory health.