Professor Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz has made outstanding contributions to public health in Canada and beyond through his research and policy work on tobacco control. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in Canada, and his studies evaluating a range of interventions to reduce smoking, combined with his teaching and scholarship on effective public health policy, have led directly to a decline in tobacco use. He is currently the executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit; a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; and a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation.

Schwartz led the evaluation of the Smoke-Free Ontario strategy and established a smokers’ panel to facilitate long-term study of more than 4,000 smokers, as well as the effects of Ontario’s smoking cessation system. He is the recipient of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s 2012 John Hastings Award for Excellence in Service to the University and the Community and the 2010 J.E. Hodgetts Award for the best article published in Canadian public administration, among other honours.