Honghyok Kim
Assistant Professor
Research Assistant Professor
Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences
UIC Institute for Environmental Science and Policy
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Contact
Building & Room:
1086 SPHPI
Address:
1603 W Taylor St, Chicago, IL 60612
Email:
Related Sites:
About
Dr. Honghyok Kim investigates why the health effects of environmental exposures and climate-related factors manifest differently across individuals, communities, and countries. His work includes the health impacts of environmental risk factors such as air pollution, temperature, heat waves, and greenness, and health disparities. He also works on theoretical, conceptual, and methodological work to better estimate environmental health impacts than current approaches. His work includes multiple countries and locations.
At the core of his work is a commitment to resolving uncertainties across the research pipeline to better inform environmental health decisions as environmental epidemiological data are often suboptimal. Building upon his domain knowledge and real-world experience in environmental health, his work bridges epidemiologic, biostatistical, and computational methods to develop integrated frameworks for large-scale data integration, environmental exposure modeling, outcome modeling, and bias correction.
To him, epidemiology, biostatistics, and data science are tools to advance environmental health. His training spans environmental and health sciences, complemented by hands-on experience with in-situ measurements during my undergraduate and postgraduate studies. He relies on core principles in environmental chemistry, physics, and biology. As many real-world data are inherently imperfect (e.g., measurement error, selection process, and limited information), he views scientific theory as essential for guiding effective data preprocessing and modeling. He also maintains a personal interest in social science, philosophy, and the use of epidemiology, risk assessment, and environmental health in legal contexts.
He believes that good science requires more than simply applying computational algorithms; it begins with an understanding of the nature we investigate, the data we analyze, and the processes that generate them. He spends much of his time reading the literature, examining the data, and reflecting on study design long before he begins computational modeling.
His research has appeared in leading journals of medicine, epidemiology, environmental health, and methods. His work has been supported by NIH, National Research Foundation of Korea, and other agencies.
English is his second language, and he learned to speak and listen only after his mid-20s. As a first-generation college student and the primary breadwinner for his family of three in his early adulthood, he cares about capacity building.
Office hours (Fall 2025):
In-person: Mondays 3:00-4:30 pm
Remote: Tuesdays & Thursdays (by appointment; honghyok@uic.edu at least 12-hours in advance)
Course taught: Intro to Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences; Climate Epidemiology/Method with R; Climate and Health
Selected Publications
Kim, H. & Lim, C. (2025) Toward Equitable Environmental Exposure Modeling through Convergence of Data, Open, Citizen Sciences: An Example of Air Pollution Exposure Modeling admits Increasing Wildfire Smoke, Environmental Research. 122881
Kim, H. & Bell, M. L. (2024) On adjustment for temperature in heat-wave epidemiology: a new method for estimating the health effects of heat waves. American Journal of Epidemiology, 193(12), 1814-1822.
Kim, H., Samet, J., & Bell, M.-L. (2022), Association between short-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality: a population-based case-crossover study using individual-level mortality registry confirmed by medical examiners, Environmental Health Perspectives. 130 (11), 117006 (highlighted by ehp journalism)
Kim, H. (co-first), Festa, N. (co-first), Burrows, K., Kim, D. C., Gill, T. & Bell, M. L. (2022) Residential exposure to petroleum refining and stroke in the southern United States, Environmental Research Letters, 17(9), 094018 (highlighted by multiple media outlets)
Kim, H., Bell, M. L. (2021) Air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in New York City, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 204(1), 97-99.
Kim, H., Lee, J. T., Fong, K. C., & Bell, M. L. (2021) Alternative adjustment for seasonality and long-term time-trend in time-series analysis for long-term environmental exposures and disease counts. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 21, 2.
Kim, H., Lee, J. T. (2020) Inter-mortality displacement hypothesis and short-term effect of air pollution on mortality in seven major cities of South Korea: a time-series analysis. International Journal of Epidemiology, 49(6). 1802-1812.
Kim, H., Kim, H., & Lee, J. T. (2019). Spatial variation in lag structure in the short-term effects of air pollution on mortality in seven major South Korean cities, 2006–2013. Environment International, 125, 595-605.
Education
Postdoctoral Associate / Fellow (2019-2022)
School of the Environment, Yale University, USA
Ph.D & MPH, Environmental Health (2013-2019)
Department of Public Health Science, Graduate School, Korea University, South Korea
BPH, Environmental Health (2008-2013)
Department of Environmental Health, Korea University, South Korea
Professional Memberships
International Society for Environmental Epidemiology
International Society for Exposure Science
Society for Epidemiologic Research