ViTAL Home Page

ViTAL, the Vanderbilt Center for Tobacco, Addiction and Lifestyle, was founded by Dr. Hilary Tindle, MD, MPH in 2014, with trans-institutional support aligning VUMC hospital operations, the VUMC Department of Medicine, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), and Divisions of General Internal Medicine & Public Health and Cardiology.

In the News

February 29, 2024 Study targets nicotine craving in schizophrenia

June 8, 2023 Enhanced treatment helps fast nicotine metabolizers quit smoking

February 16, 2023 Tindle authors NCI guidance on treatment of cancer patients who smoke

August 5, 2022 Study that investigated whether three smoking cessation drugs could reduce alcohol intake yields unexpected finding

June 28, 2022 Smokers have better quit rates with hospital-based interventions than quitline help, but study indicates need for longer follow-up

June 9, 2021 COVID-19 pandemic brought changes in cigarette smoking: study

ViTAL Mission

The overall mission of the ViTAL Center is to eliminate tobacco-related disease in our VUMC patients, and to disseminate our research findings broadly to help eliminate tobacco-related disease globally.

About ViTAL

To ensure a comprehensive approach to tobacco research and treatment across VUMC, the Center is comprised of three domains: research, education, and clinical and quality improvement (QI). Our research focuses on clinical trials for nicotine dependence and concomitant substance use, pharmacogenetics, and epidemiology.

ViTAL Research

Dr. Tindle’s clinical research has been continually funded by the NIH since 2002. A major strength of this program has been the integration of 3 streams of the ViTAL-Center’s tripartite mission: research, education, and clinical and QI projects that synergize to produce data that can be rapidly and directly translated back into improved patient care.