Veterans and Tobacco: Population, Product Use, and Lessons from the Department of Veterans Affairs, co-hosted by the National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco & Cancer Control

Brian Armour has worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for 15 years. Prior to rejoining the Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) in June 2016, Brian served as a Senior Economist with the Division of Human Development and Disability in the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. He also served as a Health Scientist in OSH’s Epidemiology Branch from 2003-05. Brian received a PhD in economics from North Carolina State University. His research interests include the health and wellness of people with disabilities, physician financial incentives, the quality of health care, and the economics of smoking.

As Director of the national program office, Tobacco and Health: Policy and Programs, Dr. Kim Hamlett-Berry is responsible for the planning and coordination of smoking and tobacco use cessation programs and tobacco control policy for the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System.

Since 1999, she has been with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), initially serving as VHA’s first Associate Director for HIV Prevention before accepting the position of national program Director for Tobacco & Health Policy in 2002. For the last 16 years, Dr. Hamlett-Berry has worked on the development of national policies to increase Veterans’ access to evidence-based tobacco use treatment and to increase integration of smoking cessation into routine mental health and substance use disorder care. She has also collaborated with the National Cancer Institute and VHA colleagues to establish a national VA quitline, 1-855-QUIT-VET, and to develop the mHealth initiative to assist Veterans with quitting tobacco use, SmokefreeVET. Dr. Hamlett-Berry also serves on Federal workgroups associated with Department of Health and Human Services tobacco cessation initiatives.

Dr. Hamlett-Berry has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Pediatric Psychology. Prior to joining VA, she was on the faculty of the University of Virginia Children’s Medical Center and Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Dr. Hamlett-Berry was chosen as the 1996-1997 William A. Bailey HIV/AIDS Congressional Science Fellow by the American Psychological Association and served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Science Fellow. Her research areas of interest have included tobacco use treatment in Veteran populations, integration of smoking cessation in mental health care, psychological adjustment of children with chronic medical conditions, and management of distress in pediatric intensive care unit populations.

Michael Tynan is a public health analyst with the policy team at CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. Michael has been on the policy team from 2008-2013 and 2016-present. From 2013-2016, Michael left CDC and served as the policy director of the state health department in Oregon, where he worked on a variety of public health issues beyond tobacco control. He was also responsible for leading the development of public health regulations for marijuana while in Oregon. Michael rejoined the OSH policy team in 2016 and helps support states on policy issues regarding price, smoke-free and point of sale.