Aaron M. Gilson, MS, MSSW, PhD

Position: Member, Board of Directors

Senior Scientist
Director, U.S. Program
Pain & Policy Studies Group
University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center, Madison, Wisconsin
World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Policy and Communications in Cancer Care

Dr. Aaron M. Gilson is Director of the U.S. Program at the Pain & Policy Studies Group (PPSG)/WHO Collaborating Center for Policy and Communications in Cancer Care, a division of the Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He received his PhD degree in social welfare and an MS degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he had a dual concentration in social policy and in child maltreatment, with emphases on prevention, theory, and survey research. He also received an MS degree from Villanova University, with a major in experimental psychology and a concentration in clinical psychology.

Dr. Gilson presents and publishes about pain and policy issues relevant to healthcare professionals and healthcare regulators both in the United States and abroad. His recent activities involve developing a methodology to evaluate federal and state controlled substances and healthcare practice policies, reviewing national trends in medical use and abuse of opioid analgesics, assessing the knowledge and attitudes of state medical regulators and practitioners regarding issues of pain management and the use of controlled substances, and examining the circumstances in which prescription monitoring programs identify aberrant patterns of use for patients prescribed opioid medications. Dr. Gilson’s work on prescription medication abuse and diversion is based on a balanced public health approach that emphasizes the need to address and identify the variety of sources of the controlled substances used for non-medical purposes.

Dr. Gilson is a Board member of the American Pain Foundation, and is a member of the American Pain Society and of its Public Policy Committee. He is an Advisory Board member of the Federation of State Medical Boards Research & Education Foundation, during which he was an Associate Editor of Responsible Opioid Prescribing. He serves on the editorial advisory boards for the Journal of Pain & Symptom Management and Pain Medicine. He recently served as a member of an expert panel to develop evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the use of opioid analgesics for chronic non-cancer pain, jointly sponsored by the American Pain Society and the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Dr. Gilson also is a research affiliate with the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.

Dr. Gilson also is involved in the WHO Collaborating Center’s international efforts to achieve more balanced drug control and regulatory policies to improve patient access to opioid medications for pain relief. He consults with national pain and palliative care organizations, government officials, and regulatory agencies, including the International Narcotics Control Board. Dr. Gilson has contributed to successful policy reform in India and Romania, and currently is involved in a project to create a morphine-equivalence metric for all countries based on their consumption of strong opioids. He is a life member of the Indian Association of Palliative Care, and serves as faculty for the PPSG International Pain Policy Fellowship to representatives from low and middle income.

Dr. Gilson’s research interests include survey design, quasi-experimental methodology, criteria-based evaluation of legal and regulatory policy, and medication trend analysis that relates to the treatment of pain for both cancer and non-cancer conditions. He also has an interest in Type II Translational research.