Robert E. Booth, Ph.D.
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Robert Booth is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. From his earliest days as a NIDA grantee, Dr. Booth has focused on encouraging other people. His first NIDA grants included funds for small pilot studies to attract other researchers into the drug abuse field. His research focuses on community-based outreach and individual risk assessment as tools to persuade people who inject drugs to enter and continue drug treatment, thus reducing HIV risk behaviors and drug use. In Ukraine, Dr. Booth has mentored colleagues testing community- and network-based interventions among people living with HIV and those who inject drugs. With more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers, the team has explored how outreach models, gender differences, and structural barriers in the legal, health, and governmental systems can predict drug use, risky behavior, and HIV status or impede access to HIV and drug use services. Following the 2009 approval of medical marijuana in Colorado, Dr. Booth and his colleagues began studying the public health impact of marijuana, particularly on abuse, diversion, and health consequences of marijuana use. The NIDA International Program presents the 2015 Award of Excellence in Mentoring to Robert E. Booth for his excellence in mentoring drug abuse researchers in Ukraine and the United States.