Dr. Pignone is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine, and Director of the (UNC) Center for Excellence in Chronic Illness Care. He received his medical degree and residency training in primary care internal medicine from the University of California - San Francisco. He then completed fellowship training in clinical epidemiology and health services research through the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at UNC.

Dr. Pignone's research is focused on chronic disease prevention and physician-patient communication about risk in primary care settings. His main areas of interest include heart disease prevention, colorectal cancer screening, and disease management for common chronic illnesses such as diabetes, depression, heart failure, and chronic pain. He has conducted research examining the role of literacy in physician-patient communication and its effect on health outcomes, including racial/ethnic disparities, in patients with chronic illnesses. He has developed and tested interventions to mitigate literacy-related health disparities and to improve the use of appropriate preventive services. He has also performed systematic reviews and economic analyses examining strategies for the primary prevention of heart disease, including aspirin.