The overarching and driving goal of Dr. Hays' research is to reduce the adverse health impacts of tobacco use and dependence by helping people quit tobacco. Dr. Hays developed this interest as an outgrowth of clinical work treating people with substance dependence early in his career at Vanderbilt University. Mayo Clinic provided the opportunity to focus his clinical and research skills on tobacco because of the comprehensive tobacco treatment program developed at Mayo Clinic. His passion is to find new and better ways to treat people with tobacco dependence and to grow and disseminate tobacco dependence treatment opportunities as part of comprehensive tobacco control efforts in the United States and through his international work.

Learning the best ways to provide tobacco dependence treatment in conjunction with lung cancer screening was a natural outgrowth of his 25 years of clinical research. Identifying best practices for tobacco dependence intervention, coupled with the growing lung cancer programs across the US, will allow us to extend the reach of tobacco dependence treatment to a population of people with the highest burden of tobacco-related disease risk.