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Dr. Michael Fiore is a faculty member in the Division of General Internal Medicine within the Department of Medicine, and the UW Chair for Tobacco Research and Intervention Research Professor. He founded—and has served as director of—the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (CTRI) since 1992. Dr. Fiore is a nationally recognized expert on how to help patients quit smoking, providing perspectives to audiences ranging from Good Morning America to the United States Senate. He has written numerous articles, chapters, and books on cigarette smoking and contributed to U.S. Surgeon General Reports in 2020 and 2000.
Fiore served as chair of the panel that produced the United States Public Health Service (PHS) Clinical Practice Guideline: Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence, in 2000 which provides a gold standard for healthcare providers. That PHS Guideline was updated and published in 2008 with the simultaneous endorsement of 58 leading medical and public health organizations. He co-directed The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Program Offices, Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care and Addressing Tobacco in Healthcare Research Network. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Bowdoin College’s Common Good Award, the Institute of Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) Physician Advocacy Merit Award, and election to the Association of American Physicians. In 2012, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly, Institute of Medicine).
Dr. Fiore chaired the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Subcommittee on Tobacco Cessation of the Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health that produced a comprehensive plan for promoting tobacco cessation in the United States. In July 2003, he was one of five national recipients of the Innovators in Combating Substance Abuse Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 2005, Dr. Fiore was asked by the United States Justice Department as part of their landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry to craft a $130 billion, 25-year plan to assist 33 million smokers to quit.
Dr. Fiore is a clinically active general internist and preventive medicine specialist, treating patients for tobacco dependence.
Dr. Fiore’s chief research and policy focus has been to develop strategies to prompt clinicians and health care systems to intervene with patients who use tobacco. As part of this effort, he spearheaded the concept of expanding the vital signs to include tobacco use status. Starting in 1999, along with UW-CTRI Research Director Dr. Timothy Baker, Fiore has led five consecutive five-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center Grants. The most recent from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), known as Breaking Addiction to Tobacco for Health 2 (BREATHE 2), currently runs from 2019 to 2024. Fiore is also an inaugural recipient of an NCI Outstanding Investigator R35 seven-year grant titled Transforming the Treatment of Tobacco Use in Health Care: Seizing the Potential of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) to Deliver Comprehensive Chronic Care Treatment for Smoking.