Ray A. Yeager, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Medicine

502-852-9069 • E-mail

Education and Training

Ph.D.: University of Louisville, Public Health Sciences

Research Interests

Ray Yeager, Ph.D., is an active collaborator on the Green Heart Louisville project, University of Louisville Superfund Research Center projects, and the Louisville Healthy Heart Study. The overarching goal of his research is to identify and create a better understanding of environmental factors affecting cardiovascular risk, particularly greenness and air pollutants, that enables high-impact and translatable research to further the NIH mission "to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability."

Dr. Yeager oversees collection, storage, analysis, and interpretation of geographically-linked information at the Envirome Institute. This includes geographic data analysis methods of geocoded participant records, assessment of geophysical characteristics, characterization of environmental exposures, and development of visual representations ofgeographic information. He has over 12 years of professional and academic experience in geographic analysis, data management, and environmental research.

Featured Publications

For a complete list of publications, go to Research Gate.

  • Keith RJ, Holm RH, Amraotkar AR, Bezold MM, Brick JM, Bushau-Sprinkle AM, Hamorsky KT, Kitterman KT, Palmer KE, Smith T, Yeager R, Bhatnagar A. Stratified Simple Random Sampling Versus Volunteer Community-Wide Sampling for Estimates of COVID-19 Prevalence. Am J Public Health. 2023 Jul;113(7):768-777. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2023.307303. Epub 2023 May 18. PMID: 37200600; PMCID: PMC10262242.
  • Yeager R, Browning MHEM, Breyer E, Ossola A, Larson LR, Riggs DW, Rigolon A, Chandler C, Fleischer D, Keith R, Walker K, Hart JL, Smith T, Bhatnagar A. Greenness and equity: Complex connections between intra-neighborhood contexts and residential tree planting implementation. Environ Int. 2023 Jun;176:107955. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2023.107955. Epub 2023 May 12. PMID: 37196566; PMCID: PMC10367429.
  • Basner M, Smith MG, Jones CW, Ecker AJ, Howard K, Schneller V, Cordoza M, Kaizi-Lutu M, Park-Chavar S, Stahn AC, Dinges DF, Shou H, Mitchell JA, Bhatnagar A, Smith T, Smith AE, Stopforth CK, Yeager R, Keith RJ. Associations of bedroom PM2.5, CO2, temperature, humidity, and noise with sleep: An observational actigraphy study. Sleep Health. 2023 Jun;9(3):253-263. doi: 10.1016/j.sleh.2023.02.010. Epub 2023 Apr 18. PMID: 37076419; PMCID: PMC10293115.
  • Hart JL, Yeager RA, Riggs DW, Fleischer D, Owolabi U, Walker KL, Bhatnagar A, Keith RJ. The Relationship between Perceptions and Objective Measures of Greenness. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 6;19(23):16317. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192316317. PMID: 36498387; PMCID: PMC9736070.
  • Smith T, Holm RH, Yeager R, Moore JB 4th, Rouchka EC, Sokoloski KJ, Elliott EM, Talley D, Arora V, Moyer S, Bhatnagar A. Combining Community Wastewater Genomic Surveillance with State Clinical Surveillance: A Framework for SARS-CoV-2 Public Health Practice. Food Environ Virol. 2022 Dec;14(4):410-416. doi: 10.1007/s12560-022-09531-2. Epub 2022 Aug 18. PMID: 35982363; PMCID: PMC9387882.
  • Faleye TOC, Driver EM, Bowes DA, Holm RH, Talley D, Yeager R, Bhatnagar A, Smith T, Varsani A, Halden RU, Scotch M. Detection of human, porcine and canine picornaviruses in municipal sewage sludge using pan-enterovirus amplicon-based long-read Illumina sequencing. Emerg Microbes Infect. 2022 Dec;11(1):1339-1342. doi: 10.1080/22221751.2022.2071173. PMID: 35475464; PMCID: PMC9132413.
  • Westcott CE, Sokoloski KJ, Rouchka EC, Chariker JH, Holm RH, Yeager RA, Moore JB 4th, Elliott EM, Talley D, Bhatnagar A, Smith T. The Detection of Periodic Reemergence Events of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Strain in Communities Dominated by Omicron. Pathogens. 2022 Oct 28;11(11):1249. doi: 10.3390/pathogens11111249. PMID: 36365000; PMCID: PMC9697103.
  • Coleman CJ, Yeager RA, Pond ZA, Riggs DW, Bhatnagar A, Arden Pope C 3rd. Mortality risk associated with greenness, air pollution, and physical activity in a representative U.S. cohort. Sci Total Environ. 2022 Jun 10;824:153848. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153848. Epub 2022 Feb 14. PMID: 35176374; PMCID: PMC10243166.
  • Coleman CJ, Yeager RA, Riggs DW, Coleman NC, Garcia GR, Bhatnagar A, Pope CA. Greenness, air pollution, and mortality risk: A U.S. cohort study of cancer patients and survivors. Environ Int. 2021 Dec;157:106797. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106797. Epub 2021 Jul 29. PMID: 34332301.
  • Fontenele RS, Kraberger S, Hadfield J, Driver EM, Bowes D, Holland LA, Faleye TOC, Adhikari S, Kumar R, Inchausti R, Holmes WK, Deitrick S, Brown P, Duty D, Smith T, Bhatnagar A, Yeager RA 2nd, Holm RH, von Reitzenstein NH, Wheeler E, Dixon K, Constantine T, Wilson MA, Lim ES, Jiang X, Halden RU, Scotch M, Varsani A. High-throughput sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater provides insights into circulating variants. Water Res. 2021 Oct 15;205:117710. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2021.117710. Epub 2021 Sep 25. PMID: 34607084; PMCID: PMC8464352.