LaMonte appointed to heart association panel

Michael J. LaMonte, research associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Health Professions, has been appointed to the Subcommittee on Physical Activity of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health.

In this role, LaMonte is charged with developing and writing national scientific position stands and pronouncements on behalf of AHA in the area of physical activity, sedentary behavior and cardiovascular disease.

The Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health focuses on “nutrition, physical activity, obesity, diabetes, lipids and the behaviors related to these conditions and how they contribute to the development of cardiovascular diseases.”

“Modifiable factors, such as insufficient physical activity levels, prolonged sedentary behavior and low physical-functioning capacity, contribute substantially to the enormous population burden of cardiovascular diseases, especially heart attack and stroke, among U.S. adults,” LaMonte says. “A better understanding of how to promote and sustain behavioral, environmental and policy changes to improve these factors at the community level is of major importance to the ongoing fight against the nation’s leading cause of death, disability and health care utilization.”

LaMonte has previously served in other capacities with AHA, among them as a member of the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health and as a fellow of the Council on Epidemiology and Prevention.

His research includes measurement of physical activity and functional capacity, and their influence on cardiovascular disease and healthy aging.

Prior to joining the UB faculty, LaMonte served as director of epidemiology research at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, assistant professor of cardiology at the University of Utah Medical School, director of the Exercise Testing Laboratory in the Cardiology Division at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, and assistant professor of exercise science at Marshall University.