Non-Resident Scholar
Old Dominion University
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Dr. Neff is currently Professor of Community and Environmental Health at Old Dominion University. He has 30+ years of experience conducting federally funded community based survey and evaluation research and has over 70 refereed publications in areas of psychological distress, depression, alcohol use, and HIV risk behaviors.

Dr. Neff has been Principal or Co-Investigator on roughly $13 million in externally funded research and his prior research funding includes: (1) a large-scale NIAAA-funded prospective study (R01-AA06723) of sociocultural influences upon drinking patterns and alcohol-related problems among adult male and female Anglo, Black, and Mexican American regular drinkers, (2) an NIAAA grant (R01-AA08067) to examine relationships between drinking patterns and AIDS risk behaviors, (3) a NIAID funded research project to compare alternative models of Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) education for primary care providers(U19-AI31498), (4) a CMHS funded demonstration/evaluation project involving provider education regarding mental health aspects of HIV/AIDS, and (5) two SAMHSA/CSAT funded Targeted Capacity Expansion projects focusing upon strategies to engage out-of-treatment drug users in substance abuse and HIV risk reduction interventions.

Most recently, Dr. Neff has served as Principal Investigator on two NIH-funded research development program grants focusing upon minority substance abuse: The Substance Abuse Research Development Program at the at the University of Texas at Austin (R24-AA13579) and the Meharry Alcohol Research Collaborative at Meharry Medical College (U01-AA014939). Both of these projects have involved extensive mentoring of junior faculty to help them develop fundable research programs.

Dr. Neff is currently Principal Investigator on a recently funded NIH/NIDCR ARRA Research Challenge Award titled “Adoption, Fidelity, and Effectiveness of Alcohol SBIRT in Dental Practice” (RC1-DE020563).

Dr. Neff’s research interests include: health disparities,minority mental health and substance abuse; research methodology and program evaluation.

Dr. Neff currently serves as a regular member of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism “Epidemiology, Prevention, and Behavioral Research’(AA-2) Study section (2007 – 2011)

He is currently developing research projects addressing 1) implementation and effectiveness of dental practice based screening and brief interventions for alcohol abuse, and 2) the role spirituality and spiritual change as a mediator of outcomes of substance abuse treatment.