Immediate Past President

Richard Saitz

Biography
Richard Saitz is a general internist and primary care physician, an addiction medicine specialist, Chair and Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University (BU) School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at BU School of Medicine. He Chaired the Treatment and Services review committee for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, is Editor of Evidence-Based Medicine and Senior Editor of Journal of Addiction Medicine, Section Editor and sole author of key chapters in UpToDate on unhealthy substance use, an editor of the ASAM textbook Principles of Addiction Medicine. He founded the journal Addiction Science and Clinical Practice as an independent publication, and he now serves as editor emeritus.  He also serves on several editorial boards including those of the Journal of Addictive Diseases and Substance Abuse. His primary areas of expertise supported by NIH (US National Institutes of Health), RWJF (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), and SAMHSA (US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), are screening and brief intervention, integrating substance-related and general health care, improving the quality of care for people with unhealthy substance use, particularly in general health settings, and basing care on science. As part of his role with ISAJE, Professor Saitz has led international trainings on publishing addiction science at the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) annual international meeting, has spoken at annual ISAJE meetings, and will host the 2017 annual meeting of the ISAJE in Boston.  He also has great interest in improving the quality of published addiction science, and a particular interest in making research as accessible as possible to scientists and the public, and in promoting the use of accurate, scientific, non-stigmatizing terminology in writing about people who suffer from or are at risk for substance use disorders/addiction.