Nancy Rigotti, MD
Associate Chief, General Medicine Division
Director, Tobacco Research and Treatment Center
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Bio
Dr. Rigotti is a primary care physician who trained in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is now an Associate Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and an internationally-known expert on tobacco use and treatment. She co-directs the Mass General site for the Harvard Medical School Fellowship in General Medicine and is Director of Mass General’s Office of Women’s Careers, whose mission is to promote the academic careers of female faculty members in all hospital departments.
Dr. Rigotti has long advocated for improving the delivery of tobacco dependence treatment in the health care system. She founded and directs Mass General’s Tobacco Research and Treatment Center, which combines a clinical treatment program, the Mass General Tobacco Treatment Service, with a multidisciplinary research group that develops, test, and disseminates interventions for smoking cessation across outpatient and inpatient settings. Working at the junction of medicine and public health, Dr. Rigotti’s work combines efforts to change individual behavior with community, policy, and health care system efforts to influence individuals’ decisions about starting or continuing to smoke. Dr. Rigotti has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and has received numerous grants to support her work, including funding from NIH and foundations.
Dr. Rigotti has served as President of the Society of General Internal Medicine (2008-09), president of the Society for Research in Nicotine and Tobacco (2003-04) and as Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Smoking Behavior and Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1985-1990). She was a scientific editor of the 1989 Surgeon General’s Report on Tobacco, and was a Deputy Editor of Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Her research in tobacco cessation received the 2015 John Eisenberg National Award for Career Achievement in Research from the Society of General Internal Medicine and the 2006 James D. Bruce Memorial Award for Distinguished Contributions in Preventive Medicine from the American College of Physicians.
Current Projects
National Institutes of Health
Assessing the Integration of Tobacco Cessation Treatment Into Lung Cancer Screening
Goals: This project will address the integration of a virtual tobacco cessation treatment into lung cancer screening in a large integrated health care delivery system by integrating into its LDCT-LCS sites a novel, personalized, evidence-based smoking cessation intervention in English and Spanish.
Role: Principal Investigator
National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
Comparative Effectiveness of Post-discharge Strategies for Hospitalized Smokers
Goals: To test an innovative strategy to efficiently sustain patient contact after discharge by streamlining the delivery of post-discharge smoking interventions in order to maximize their uptake
Role: Principal Investigator
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse
Career Development Program in Substance Use and Addiction Medicine
Goal: To develop a multidisciplinary career development program for post-doctoral clinician-scientists who seek to become independent investigators in patient-oriented addiction research.
Role: Principal Investigator
National Institutes of Health
Implementing A Virtual Tobacco Treatment in Community Oncology Practices
Goal: To assess virtual delivery of an evidence-based tobacco treatment intervention in cancer community sites affiliated with the ECOG-ACRIN NCI Community Oncology Research Program.
Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama for the University of Alabama
Effectiveness of a smoking cessation algorithm integrated into HIV primary care
Goal: The major goals of this project are to (1) Compare the efficacy of algorithm treatment to enhanced treatment as usual for smoking cessation among smokers living with HIV engaged in clinical care for their HIV disease; (2) characterize provider-, staff-, patient-, and clinic-level facilitators and barriers to integration of algorithm treatment and examine intervention cost effectiveness in care; and (3) examine algorithm treatment effects on engagement and retention in care.
National Institutes of Health
Electronic Pediatric Office Systems to Support Treatment for Parental Tobacco Use
Goal: The goal of the proposed study is to ensure that every parent who smokes tobacco and visits the child’s doctor receives tobacco dependence treatment—something that happens less than 2% of the time in spite of free tobacco cessation quitlines in all 50 states and widespread insurance coverage of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).
National Institutes of Health
Tobacco Use and Cessation, HIV, and TB in South Africa: Clinical and Economic Outcomes
Goal: To expand and validate a novel simulation model of tobacco, HIV, and TB in South Africa that can inform to decisions about integrating care and services for the overlapping tobacco, HIV, and TB epidemics in LMICs.
American Lung Association
The Public Health Impact of Policies Around Electronic Cigarettes
Goal: To use the STOP microsimulation model to project the prevalence of e-cigarette use and cigarette smoking among US youth and adults resulting from various e-cigarette regulatory scenarios.
National Institutes of Health
Varenicline and mobile behavioral assistance for tobacco cessation in HIV care in India
Goal: This study will evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an integrated mobile behavioral and varenicline intervention among smokers and dual tobacco users in HIV care in Chennai, India. Combining a scalable mobile health intervention with cost-effective pharmacotherapy could reduce the harms of tobacco among people living with HIV.
National Institutes of Health
Mentoring to Assess the Health Equity Impact of Lung Cancer Screening and Tobacco Cessation in the COVID era
Goal: To enhance the underrepresented in medicine (URiM)-focused mentoring skills of three senior faculty mentors and utilize R01 data to provide project-based mentoring and support the career development of two promising junior faculty from URiM backgrounds.
Role: Principal Investigator
Achieve Life Sciences, Inc.
CTO-SBIR: A Multicenter, Double-blind, Randomized, Placebo-controlled Phase 2 Trial Evaluating the Efficacy and Safety of Cytisinicline in Adults Using Nicotine-containing E-cigarettes
Goal: RCT of cytisine for nicotine vaping cessation, a Phase 2 SBIR study.
Role: Principal Investigator
National Institutes of Health
Assessing the impact of vaping control polices at the school, local and state levels
Goal: We will conduct a comprehensive analysis assessing the impact of policies regulating electronic nicotine delivery systems (e-cigarettes, or ENDS) on the use of ENDS, combusted tobacco, and cannabis.
Dana Farber Cancer Institute
The impact of individual and neighborhood SES on a smoking cessation intervention among smokers undergoing lung cancer screening
Goal: The objective of this project is to examine the association between individual and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) on the adherence to a smoking cessation intervention and successful smoking abstinence among older adults undergoing lung cancer screening.
Role: Principal Investigator
Publications
Dr. Rigotti on PubMed
Education
AB, Stanford University
MD, Harvard Medical School
Residency, Massachusetts General Hospital
Fellowship, Harvard Medical School
Fellowship, Massachusetts General Hospital