David B Abrams

Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Professional overview

Dr. David Abrams' career focuses on systems and social learning frameworks to inform population health enhancement. He has experience in testing theory, research design, measuring mechanisms of behavior change and outcome, and evaluating clinical trials (behavioral and pharmacological). His interests span topics from basic bio-behavioral mechanisms and clinical treatments to policy across risk factors and behaviors (e.g. tobacco/nicotine; alcohol, obesity, co-morbidity of medical and mental health), disease states (cancer; cardiovascular; HIV-AIDS), levels (biological, individual, organizational, worksite, community, global, and internet based), populations and disparities. His interests converge in the domain of implementation science to cost-efficiently inform evidence-based public health practice and policymaking.

Through transdisciplinary and translational research strategies, Dr. Abrams provides scientific leadership in tobacco control. His current focus is in strengthening global and United States tobacco and nicotine management strategies. Deaths of 1 billion smokers are estimated by 2100 caused overwhelmingly by use of combustible (smoked) tobacco products, not nicotine. Harm minimization is a key overarching systems strategy to speed the net public health benefit of emergent disruptive technologies for cleaner nicotine delivery. The goal is more rapid elimination of preventable deaths, disease burdens, and the widening gap in health disparities driven disproportionately by disparities in smoking.

Dr. Abrams was a professor and founding director of the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at Brown University Medical School. He then directed the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Until 2017, he was Professor of Health Behavior and Society at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the founding Executive Director of the Schroeder National Institute of Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Truth Initiative (formerly the American Legacy Foundation).

Dr. Abrams has published over 250 peer reviewed scholarly articles and been a Principal Investigator on numerous NIH grants. He is lead author of The Tobacco Dependence Treatment Handbook: A Guide to Best Practices. He has served on expert panels at NIH and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on Obesity, Alcohol Misuse and Ending the Tobacco Problem: A Blueprint for the Nation. He has also served on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute (NIH-NCI) and was President of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

For a complete list of Dr. Abrams' published work, click here.

Education

BSc (Hons), Psychology and Computer Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

MS, Clinical Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

PhD, Clinical Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown Medical School, Providence, RI

Honors and awards

Research Laureate Award, American Academy of Health Behavior (2014)

Joseph W. Cullen Memorial Award for Tobacco Research, American Society for Preventive Oncology (2008)

Distinguished Alumni Award: Rutgers University, The Graduate School, New Brunswick, NJ (2007)

The Musiker-Miranda Distinguished Service Award, American Psychological Association (2006)

Distinguished Service Award, Society of Behavioral Medicine (2006)

Outstanding Research Mentor Award, Society of Behavioral Medicine (2006)

Book of the Year Award: Tobacco Dependence Treatment Handbook. American Journal of Nursing (2005)

Distinguished Scientist Award, Society of Behavioral Medicine (1998)

Areas of research and study

Behavioral Science

Chronic Diseases

Evaluations

Implementation and Impact of Public Health Regulations

Implementation science

Population Health

Public Health Pedagogy

Public Health Systems

Research Design

Systems Integration

Systems Interventions

Tobacco Control

Translational science

Publications

Publications

Women who work in manufacturing settings : Factors influencing their participation in worksite health promotion programs

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Work site-based cancer prevention: Primary results from the Working Well Trial

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Coping and social skills training

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Cue exposure treatment in alcohol dependence

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Distribution of smokers by stage in three representative samples

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Division 50 on addictions: Finding synergism with division 38.

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ETS exposure in the workplace : perceptions and reactions by employees in 114 work sites

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Exercise enhances the maintenance of smoking cessation in women

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Integrating basic, clinical, and public health research for alcohol- tobacco interactions

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Interrelationship of smoking and alcohol dependence, use and urges to use

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Overview of section II: Treatment, early intervention, and policy

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Smoking among alcoholics during and after treatment: Implications for models, treatment strategies and policy

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The Working Well Trial : Baseline Dietary and Smoking Behaviors of Employees and Related Worksite Characteristics

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An evaluation of the relationship between self-report and biochemical measures of environmental tobacco smoke exposure

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Behavioral medicine for medical patients

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Bridging research to action : A framework and decision-making process for cancer control

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Cancer control at the workplace : The working well trial

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Challenges facing behavioral medicine in the 1990's: The development and maintenance of health promotion programs in the private teaching hospital.

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Cue Reactivity as a Predictor of Drinking Among Male Alcoholics

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Matching high-dependence and low-dependence smokers to self-help treatment with or without nicotine replacement

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Mechanisms in Multiple Risk Factor Interventions : Smoking, Physical-Activity, and Dietary-Fat Intake Among Manufacturing Workers

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Recruitment of work sites to a health promotion research trial implications for generalizability

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Smoking at Home : The Impact of Smoking Cessation on Nonsmokers' Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke

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Smoking cessation at the workplace: Conceptual and practical issues

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Taking an individualized approach to the assessment of self-efficacy and the prediction of alcoholic relapse

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