Robert Heimer, PhD

Dr. Heimer's major research efforts include scientific investigation of the mortality and morbidity associated with injection drug use. Areas of investigation include syringe exchange programs, virus survival in syringes, hepatitis B vaccination, hepatitis C transmission risks, overdose prevention and resuscitation, and pharmacological treatment of opiate addiction. His research combines laboratory, operational, behavioral, and structural analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programs in preventing the negative medical consequences of injection drug use. Dr. Heimer is a member of Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) and former Director of its Interdisciplinary Research Methods Core. His current work focuses on the contexts and consequences of the opioid crisis in CT and the systemic of HIV, viral hepatitis, and injection drug use nationally and globally.

Dr. Heimer previously served as Principal Investigator of the Yale office of the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program. This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded program is one of ten programs nationwide that seek to assess, through population-based surveillance, the public health impact of emerging infectious diseases and to evaluate methods for their prevention and control in the community. The Yale program currently focuses on foodborne illnesses, and respiratory illnesses (especially influenza), Lyme and other tickborne diseases, Clostridium difficile, and the prevention of human papillomavirus infections.

Dr. Heimer received his training in molecular biology and pharmacology at Columbia College (BA) and Yale University (MA, PhD). He began his work on the prevention of HIV among injection drug users in 1990 with an evaluation of the city-run New Haven needle exchange program and his work on emerging infections in 1995 with studies of the tick-borne agent of human ehrlichiosis.