Louise A. Brinton

Louise A. Brinton is an American epidemiologist. She was a senior investigator and the first Scientific Advisor for International Activities of the National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.

Brinton began her graduate work in anthropology but switched to epidemiology. She earned an M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Brinton joined the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) as a predoctoral staff fellow in 1976. She earned a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1979, and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Oxford University under the tutelage of Richard Doll, before returning to NCI.

In 1984, Brinton was appointed the NCI Acting Chief of the Environmental Studies Section at NCI, and in 1996 became Chief of the Environmental Epidemiology Branch, later renamed the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch (HREB). In 2016, she was named DCEG's first Scientific Advisor for International Activities. She retired from federal service at the end of April 2017.

In 2017, when asked which study she is most proud of, Brinton quickly named the Invasive Cervical Cancer Study in Latin America. Women in Latin America experience some of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the world. The team hypothesized that sexual behavior among the men was responsible for the extremely high rates; they designed a study to identify the contribution of male sexual behavior.

Brinton served on the Executive Board of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, and was elected president of the organization in 1990. Brinton has received the PHS Special Recognition Award and the NIH Director's Award for innovative leadership in women's health research. She has also been honored by receipt of the H.A. Tyroler Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of North Carolina and the American College of Epidemiology’s Abraham Lilienfeld Award and the 2015 Society for Epidemiologic Research Career Accomplishment Award.