Medicine: Mind the Gap is a lecture series that explores issues at the intersection of research, evidence, and clinical practice—areas in which conventional wisdom may be contradicted by recent evidence. From the role of advocacy organizations in medical research and policy, to off-label drug use, to the effectiveness of continuing medical education, the seminar series will aim to engage the NIH community in thought-provoking discussions to challenge what we think we know and to think critically about our role in today’s research environment.

Although tobacco use remains by far the most important cause of death and disability, it fails to “punch its weight” among the policy, research, and academic communities when compared with other conditions such as breast cancer, obesity, or autism. In part, this may be because smoking has been increasingly concentrated among the have-nots in our society: persons in low socioeconomic classes and those who suffer from mental illnesses and/or substance abuse disorders. And, in part, it reflects a conventional, but false, wisdom that the war against tobacco has been won. Although legacies of the historic relative inattention to smoking are embedded in the Federal agencies charged with promoting health, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health(NIH), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Food and Drug Administration, and Health Resources and Services Administration, some recent progress has occurred. To achieve desired population health outcomes, there needs to be more direct focus on both helping smokers quit and preventing initiation of smoking. In addition, there are many important questions regarding how best to tailor smoking cessation interventions. These questions deserve the attention of those who work in public health agencies at the Federal and state levels.

Dr. Schroeder is Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he also heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. The Center, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the American Legacy Foundation, works with leaders of more than 80 American health professional organizations and health care institutions to increase the cessation rate for smokers. It has expanded the types of clinician groups that support cessation, developed an alternative cessation message (Ask, Advise, Refer), created new ways to market toll-free telephone quite lines, and engaged the addiction and mental health treatment communities for the first time. Between 1990 and 2002, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of RWJF. During that time, the Foundation developed new programs in substance abuse prevention and treatment, care at the end of life, and health insurance expansion for children, among others. Dr. Schroeder graduated with honors from Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, and trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of Boston City Hospital and in epidemiology as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer of the CDC. He held faculty appointments at Harvard, George Washington University, and UCSF. At both George Washington University and UCSF, he was the founding medical director of a university-sponsored HMO and, at UCSF,he founded its Division of General Internal Medicine.

This seminar is cosponsored by the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, Office of Research on Women’s Health, and National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Prevention.

For more information go to http://prevention.nih.gov/mindthegap/schroeder.aspx