Paul Gilbert
In 2025 Paul Gilbert joined the Department of Public Health as part of the College of Arts and Sciences LGBTQ+ Studies cluster hire. Dr. Gilbert studies patterns of hazardous drinking, risk of alcohol use disorders, and the multiple pathways to recovery from an alcohol problem. Much of his scholarship has focused on disparities by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation. For example, he has investigated the ways that race/ethnicity and sexual orientation may shape hazardous drinking among men, finding evidence of both higher and lower risk depending on the combination of characteristics. He recently completed a national study to investigate how people define recovery when they don’t seek treatment, the change strategies leading to resolution of a drinking problem without treatment, and how untreated recovery may vary by gender and race/ethnicity. Another recent project, undertaken in partnership with the University of Iowa LGBTQ Clinic, was a validation study of brief alcohol screeners with transgender and gender diverse folks. Results suggesting the best set of questions to identify hazardous drinking were presented at the 2024 World Professional Association for Transgender Health scientific symposium.
Among other activities, Dr. Gilbert is an active member of the American Public Health Association, where he served as the chair of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs Section, and the Research Society on Alcohol, where he served as a member of the Diversity Committee.
Dr. Gilbert earned a SCM degree in Health and Social Behavior from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and a PhD degree in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship in alcohol epidemiology at the Alcohol Research Group (Emeryville CA), where he holds a concurrent appointment as Affiliate Senior Scientist.
Courses
PHSC 3: Introduction to Community Health
PHSC 151: Program Planning and Evaluation
PHSC 160: Public Health Responses to Substance Use
PHSC 175: Qualitative Research Methods in Public Health
Publications
Wurtzel J,* † Gilbert PA,* Soweid L, Maharjan G† (2025). COVID-19 pandemic experiences and alcohol use: Findings of higher and lower risk in a midwestern state. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health; 22(8): 1230. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph22081230
(* co-first authors, † student author)
Pinedo M, Zemore SE, Gilbert PA, Castro Y, Caetano R (2025). Differences in barriers to specialty alcohol treatment between Latino and White Adults with an alcohol use disorder. Drug and Alcohol Dependence; 269. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2025.112594
Kava CM, Watkins SL, Gilbert PA, Villhauer TJ, Welter TL, Afifi R (2024). E-Cigarettes in college: Associations between mental health and e-cigarette use with other substances. Tobacco Prevention and Cessation; 10: eCollection 2024. DOI: 10.18332/tpc/188712. DOI: 10.18332/tpc/188712
Gilbert PA, Soweid L, Evans S,† Brown G, Skinstad AH, Zemore SE (2024). How recovery definitions vary by services use pathway: Findings from a national survey of adults. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors; 38(8): 891-900. DOI: 10.1037/adb0001026. DOI: 10.1037/adb0001026
(† student author)
Soweid L,* Gilbert PA,* Maharjan G,† Holdefer PJ,† Evans S,† Mulia N (2024). “Everybody needs to find the best path for them:” Insights on recovery strategies from interviews with people who did not obtain treatment for alcohol use disorder. Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research; 48(4): 743-754. DOI: 10.1111/acer.15287
(* co-first authors, † student author)
Zemore SE, Ziemer KL,† Gilbert PA, Karno MP, Kaskutas LA (2023). Understanding the shared meaning of recovery from substance use disorders: New Findings from the What is Recovery? Study. Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment; 17: 1-12. DOI: 10.1177/11782218231199372. DOI: 10.1177/11782218231199372
(† student author)
Puckett JA, Veldhuis CB, Gilbert PA, Anderson-Carpenter KD, Mustanski B, Newcomb M (2023). Differential associations between enacted and expected stigma with psychological distress, alcohol use, and substance use in transgender and gender diverse people. Drug and Alcohol Dependence; 248: 109921. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.109921
Pinedo M, Castro Y, Gilbert PA, Caetano R, Zemore SE (2023). Improving assessment of alcohol treatment barriers among Latino and White adults with alcohol use disorder: Development of the Barriers to Specialty Alcohol Treatment Scale. Drug and Alcohol Dependence; 248: 109895. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.109895. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.109895
Gilbert PA, Soweid L, Holdefer PJ,† Kersten S,† Mulia N (2023). Strategies to maintain recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from a US national survey of adults with prior alcohol problems. PLOS ONE; 18(4):e0284435. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0284435. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284435
Baker E, Gilbert PA, Weldon CW, Vanderheyden BB,† (2023). Predictors of empirically derived substance use patterns among sexual and gender minority populations in a rural midwestern state. LGBT Health; 10(1): 62-71.
Gilbert PA, Saathoff E,† Russell A, Brown G (2022). Gender differences in lifetime and current use of online support for recovery from alcohol use disorders. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research; 46(6): 1073-1083. DOI: 10.1111/acer.14827
Gilbert PA, Soweid L, Kersten SK,† Brown G, Zemore SE, Mulia N, Skinstad A (2021). Maintaining recovery from alcohol use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic: The importance of recovery capital. Drug and Alcohol Dependence; 229(Pt A): 109142. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.109142
(† student author)
Zemore SE, Ware OE, Gilbert PA, Pinedo M (2021). Barriers to retention in substance use treatment: Validation of a new, theory-based scale. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment; 131:108422. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsat.2021.108422. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsat.2021.108422
Pro G, Gilbert PA, Baldwin JA, Brown C, Young S, Zaller N (2021). Multilevel modeling of county-level excessive alcohol use, rurality, and COVID-19 case fatality rates in the US. PLoS ONE; 16(6): e0253466. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253466. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253466
Woods-Jaeger B, Daniel-Ulloa J, Kleven L, Bucklin R, Maldonado A,† Gilbert PA, Parker EA, Baquero B (2021). Building leadership, capacity, and power to advance health equity and justice through community-engaged research in the Midwest. American Journal of Community Psychology; 67: 195-204. DOI: 10.1002/ajcp.12462
Zemore SE, Gilbert PA, Pinedo M, Tsutsumi S, McGeough B, Dickerson DL (2021). Racial/ethnic disparities in mutual-help group participation for substance use problems. Alcohol Research: Current Reviews; 41(1):03. doi: 10.35946/arcr.v41.1.03. DOI: 10.35946/arcr.v41.1.03
Gilbert PA, Kava CM, Afifi R (2021). High school students rarely use e-cigarettes alone: A socio-demographic analysis of poly-substance use among adolescents in the USA. Nicotine & Tobacco Research; 23(3): 505-510. DOI: 10.1093/ntr/ntaa037
Afifi R, Novak N, Gilbert PA, Pauly B, Abdulrahim S, Rashid S, Ortega F, Ferrand R (2020). ‘Most at risk’ for COVID-19: The imperative to expand the definition from biological to social factors for equity. Preventive Medicine; 139:106229. DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2020.106229
Gilbert PA, Lee AA,† Pass L,† Lappin L,† Thompson L,† Sittig KW, Baker E, Hoffman-Zinnel D (2020). Queer in the heartland: Cancer risks, screenings, and diagnoses among sexual and gender minorities in Iowa. Journal of Homosexuality; 69(3): 428-444. DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2020.1826832
(† student author)
Pinedo M, Zemore SE, Beltrán-Girón J, Gilbert PA, Castro Y (2020). Women's barriers to specialty substance abuse treatment: A qualitative exploration of racial/ethnic differences. Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health; 22(4):653-660. DOI: 10.1007/s10903-019-00933-2