Frederick J. Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Frederick J. Zimmerman is Chair and Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. His research studies economic influences on population health, with a particular focus on media use and child health. His recent projects include the use of secondary data to identify the distinct effects of different content types of media exposure (commercial vs. non-commercial; violent vs. non-violent) on developmental outcomes such as obesity, cognitive development, and executive function. He has also completed a successful randomized trial of an intervention to promote a healthy media diet among preschoolers. His ongoing work interests include examinations of the effects of advertising and economic structure on child obesity; further refinement of interventions to limit young children's exposure to commercial and violent television; and studies of how child obesity is framed and what effect that framing has on attempts to find solutions to the problems of poor diet and inadequate physical activity among children.

Professor Zimmerman teaches advanced quantitative methods in the Department's doctoral training program.

Dr. Zimmerman holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty he held positions at Stanford University and the University of Washington in Seattle. He has also been a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. The component of his research that revolves around the effects of early media exposure on child health and development has caught the attention of the popular press, and has been covered by NPR, the BBC, Good Morning America, the Today Show, The New York Times, and many other media outlets.