Dr. David B. Abrams is a professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the NYU College of Global Public Health. He is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in addictions, nicotine use and chronic disease prevention. Prior to joining NYU, Dr. Abrams was professor and founding director of the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. He then directed the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) across all 27 Institutes and Centers, National Institutes of Health. From 2008-2017, Dr. Abrams was founding Director of the Schroeder National Institute of Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Truth Initiative/American Legacy Foundation and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Dr. Abrams has published over 280 scholarly peer-reviewed articles and has been a principal investigator on numerous NIH grants and NIH Centers of Research Excellence. He is lead author of The Tobacco Dependence Treatment Handbook: A Guide to Best Practices, a winner of a book of the year award. He also received the Joseph Cullen Memorial Award from the American Society for Preventive Oncology for lifetime contributions to tobacco control; the Research Laureate Award, American Academy of Health Behavior; and the Distinguished Alumni Award, Rutgers University.
Dr. Abrams also served on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute, and was president of the Society for Behavioral Medicine and recipient of their Distinguished Scientist and Distinguished Research Mentor Awards.
[The following is based on testimony to be delivered by Dr. Abrams before the NYC City Council Committee on Health…