Co-director of the Addiction and Urban Health Research Initiative at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
Dr. Thomas Kerr is the co-director of the Addiction and Urban Health Research Initiative at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (Division of AIDS), as well as a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar.
In his role at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Dr. Kerr is a principal investigator of several large cohort studies involving people who inject drugs and individuals living with HIV/AIDS, including the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS).
Dr. Kerr’s primary research interests are HIV/AIDS, injection drug use, health policy and service evaluation, and community-based research methods. A key focus of Dr. Kerr’s work has been the scientific evaluation of Insite, North America’s first safer injecting facility, and his research in this area has contributed significantly to academic, public, and government discussion, both nationally and internationally.
Dr. Kerr has published more than 300 scientific papers in international peer-reviewed journals and has received numerous local and national awards for his contributions to public health, human rights, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. In 2007, Dr. Kerr received the National Knowledge Translation Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for his efforts to promote scientific discussion on the topic of illicit drug policy. In 2010, Dr. Kerr was the co-recipient of the inaugural Population and Public Health Research Milestones Initiative award for his outstanding contribution to developing Canada’s research base for harm reduction and health equity approaches to HIV prevention and control. Most recently, Dr. Kerr was co-recipient of the Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for Achievement in the Field of Scholarship which recognizes scholars whose personal courage and quality of published research constitute a source of inspiration in drug policy scholarship.
