Telephone: (718) 670-4184

Research Interests

Steven Markowitz MD is a physician specializing in occupational and environmental medicine. Dr. Markowitz is currently Director of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (CBNS) and Professor of Environmental Sciences at Queens College, City University of New York. He is also Adjunct Professor of Community and Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he was on the full-time faculty from 1986 to 1998. He received his undergraduate education at Yale University and his medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. Dr. Markowitz is board-certified in occupational and environmental medicine and internal medicine.

With the United Steelworkers International Union and the Atomic Trades & Labor Council, Dr. Markowitz currently directs the Worker Health Protection Program, a comprehensive medical screening program for former Department of Energy workers who built the nuclear weapon arsenal of the United States over the past 60 years. This program also sponsors the largest early lung cancer detection project in occupational health in the country through the application of low dose helical CAT scanning. To date, over 7,000 workers who were exposed to asbestos, uranium, and other lung carcinogens have been screened for lung cancer in this program.

Dr. Markowitz directs the Queens College satellite clinical center of the Mount Sinai-based World Trade Center (WTC) Medical Monitoring Program and monitors nearly 1,500 WTC workers. This program documents what has happened to WTC workers and is now initiating a treatment program.

Dr. Markowitz is co-investigator, with Saru Jayaraman and the Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York and NYCOSH, of a NIEHS/NIOSH-funded environmental justice grant to document and intervene to improve the health and working conditions of immigrant restaurant workers in New York City. Previously, Dr. Markowitz and CBNS colleagues sponsored a medical screening project for immigrant WTC day laborers near Ground Zero in early 2002.

Dr. Markowitz’ research interests center on occupational and environmental disease surveillance; occupational cancer; asbestos-related diseases; and the burden and costs of occupational diseases and injuries. He is Associate Editor with William Rom MD of a major textbook, Environmental and Occupational Medicine. In 2000, he co-authored a landmark book, Costs of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (University of Michigan Press). Dr. Markowitz is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and is on the editorial board of three other peer-reviewed journals. He has additionally served as a consultant to the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and the Department of Energy. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Markowitz served on the Worker Advocacy Advisory Committee of the Department of Energy.

Selected Publications

Herbert R, Moline J, Skloot G, Metzger K, Baron S, Luft B, Markowitz S et al. The World Trade Center Disaster and the Health of Workers: Five-Year Assessment of a Unique Medical Screening Program. Environmental Health Perspectives. Dec;114(12):1853-8, 2006.

Markowitz S. The role of surveillance in occupational health. In: Rom W and Markowitz S (Eds.) Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 4nd Edition, Lippincott William and Wilkens, New York, 2007.

Markowitz S. Bladder cancer. In: Rom W and Markowitz S (Eds.) Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 4nd Edition, Lippincott William and Wilkens, New York, 2007.

Rom W (ed.) and Markowitz S (Associate Ed.) Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 4nd Edition, Lippincott William and Wilkens, New York, 2007, 1884 pp.

Markowitz SB, Miller A, Miller J, Manowitz A, Kieding, S, Sider L, Morabia, A. Ability of Low-Dose Helical Computed Tomography to Distinguish between Benign and Malignant Non-Calcified Lung Nodules. Chest. 131:1028-1034, 2007.