Dr. Tim Naimi

Timothy Naimi M.D., M.P.H is the director of the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and professor at UVic’s Division of Medical Sciences. He is a physician and alcohol epidemiologist from Boston Medical Center (BMC), and was a Professor with the Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health. He also is an affiliate professor with UBC's Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine.

Tim’s research interests mostly lie in substance-use epidemiology, particularly binge drinking and the health effects of moderate drinking, with a recent focus on prevention and effective public policies for reducing substance-use-related problems for alcohol and cannabis.

“My public-health approach to substance use, and alcohol more specifically, really dovetails well with a lot of the work at CISUR,” says Naimi. “I think CISUR is one of the few research institutions in the world that focusses on a public-health, population-level approaches to dealing with substance use and substance-use problems, as opposed to most of the work that is done, which is more clinically oriented.”

Dr. Naimi received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, his M.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts, and his M.P.H degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed a combined internal medicine-pediatrics residency program at the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Epidemiologic Intelligence Officer program with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a preventive medicine residency with the CDC. Prior to his time at Boston Medical Center, Dr. Naimi worked as a clinician for the U.S. Indian Health Service, and as a senior epidemiologist with the Alcohol Team at CDC. His current research interests, for which he receives grant support from the National Institutes of Health and CDC, include binge drinking, youth drinking, health effects of low-dose ethanol, and substance use policy including the impact of alcohol control policies, cannabis policies, and opioid policies on substance use and other health outcomes. He has co-authored more than 100 published manuscripts and book chapters.

Projects

• An estimation of the health and economic costs of alcohol use in Finland and the impact on these of the privatization of the Finnish government alcohol monopoly, Alko
• An evaluation of alternative methods of presenting health risks of alcohol to young adults
• An updated systematic review and meta-analysis of alcohol use and all-cause mortality
• A review of the evidence regarding alcohol and COVID-19
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation
• Effects of COVID-19 on alcohol and cannabis sales and alcohol- and cannabis-related hospitalizations and deaths in BC
• Estimates of Alcohol-Attributable Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost in the United States and Analytic Methods
• Impact of Marijuana Policies on Alcohol Use and Alcohol-Related Mortality
• KnowAlcohol.ca: an Alcohol and Health Web App
• Modelling the relationship between tax and price policies and impacts on alcohol consumption and harms in different socio-economic groups in Canada
• Strengthening safety nets to improve access to substance use and mental health services to optimize youth-determined health and wellness
• The potential impact of alcohol minimum unit pricing and alcoholic beverage labelling as a cancer prevention intervention in Canada, by socioeconomic status, at the national, provincial and territorial levels
• Unsupervised Alcohol Consumption on Municipal Properties in BC

Publications

• Alcohol consumption and mortality among Canadian drinkers: A national population-based survival analysis (2000–2017)
• Alcohol policies, firearm policies, and suicide in the United States: a lagged cross-sectional study
• Alcohol sales in Canadian liquor outlets as a predictor of subsequent COVID-19 infection rates: a time-series analysis
• An assessment of federal alcohol policies in Canada and priority recommendations: Results from the 3rd Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation Project
• Apologizing for the Alcohol Industry? A Comment on ISFAR's Defense of Alcohol's Purported Health Benefits
• Assessing alcohol industry penetration and government safeguards: the International Alcohol Control Study
• Association Between Daily Alcohol Intake and Risk of All-Cause Mortality
• Associations Between COVID-19 Alcohol Policy Restrictions and Alcohol Sales in British Columbia: Variation by Area-based Deprivation Level
• Calling time on low-risk drinking guidelines: An evaluation of alternative methods to communicate risks of alcohol use to consumers
• Calorie Intake from Alcohol in Canada: Why New Labelling Requirements are Necessary
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE): Federal Results
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE): Policy Domain Results (Federal)
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE) 3.0: Best Practice Policy Leaders (Provincial/Territorial)
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE) 3.0: Methodology and Evidence (Federal and Provincial/Territorial)
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE) 3.0 Project: Policy Domain Results Summary (Provincial/Territorial).
• Commentary: The burden of alcohol on health care during COVID‐19
• Commentary: Time for carefully tailored set of alcohol policies to reduce health‐care burden and mitigate potential unintended consequences?
• Commentary: Why Canadians deserve to have mandated health and standard drink information labels on alcohol containers
• Estimated Deaths Attributable to Excessive Alcohol Use Among US Adults Aged 20 to 64 Years, 2015 to 2019
• Évaluation des politiques canadiennes sur l’alcool (CAPE) 3.0 Résultats fédéraux
• Finnish alcohol policy at the crossroads: The health, safety and economic consequences of alternative systems to manage the retail sale of alcohol
• Improving Estimates of Alcohol-Attributable Deaths in the United States: Impact of Adjusting for the Underreporting of Alcohol Consumption
• Méthodologie et revue des éléments probants (à l’échelle fédérale, provinciale et territoriale)
• New perspectives on how to formulate alcohol drinking guidelines: Response to commentaries
• Policy Brief: Not Just a Walk in the Park: Unsupervised Alcohol Consumption on Municipal Properties in BC
• Projet 3.0 de l’Évaluation des politiques canadiennes sur l’alcool (CAPE) : Résumé des résultats par domaines d’action (provinciaux et territoriaux)
• Rating the comparative efficacy of state-level cannabis policies on recreational cannabis markets in the United States
• Relationships Between Alcohol and Cannabis Policies in U.S. States, 1999–2019
• Report: Not Just a Walk in the Park: Unsupervised Alcohol Consumption on Municipal Properties in BC
• Sales and Revenue from Regulated Cannabis Products in BC: October 2018-December 2020
• Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and purported lifetime nondrinkers: Ramifications for observational evidence about alcohol and health
• Selection biases in observational studies affect associations between ‘moderate’ alcohol consumption and mortality
• Testing alcohol container warning labels among alcohol consumers in the field over a 4-week period: a protocol for a randomized field trial
• The association between state cannabis policies and cannabis use among adults and youth, United States, 2002–2019
• The Cannabis Policy Scale: A New Research and Surveillance Tool for U.S. States
• Trends in Cannabis Involvement and Risk of Alcohol Involvement in Motor Vehicle Crash Fatalities in the United States, 2000‒2018
• Underestimation of alcohol consumption in cohort studies and implications for alcohol's contribution to the Global Burden of Disease
• Why do only some cohort studies find health benefits from low volume alcohol use? A systematic review and meta-analysis of study characteristics that may bias mortality risk estimates