Frank Vitale received a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St.Vincent College in 1974 and a Master's Degree in Psychology from Duquesne University in 1988. He has worked in the field of smoking cessation research since 1987, first as a Health Educator, then as Clinic Coordinator for the Lung Health Study, researching the differential effects of smoking cessation and an inhaled medication (Atrovent) on the prevention of COPD in identified high risk individuals. He has run numerous groups for the I Quit Project of the Smoking Research Group at the University of Pittsburgh as well as designed the intervention for some of these programs. He counseled over one thousand individuals by phone for the Smoke Free Challenge, a smoking cessation program run by the Health Education Center of Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania and contributed to the information packets sent to program participants. He has designed smoking cessation programs for the Comprehensive Lung Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and assisted in the creation of a program to train pharmacist to do smoking cessation counseling by phone for National Rx (Medco) in Columbus OH. He contributed content material for the smoking cessation manuals that accompany the Nicoderm CQ patches in the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and China. In all, he has counseled well over eight thousand people attempting to quit smoking.

While at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, Frank was Project Director of Lung Health Study II, a muticenter research program examining the efficacy of Azmacort in helping individuals with mild to severe COPD regain lung capacity lost to smoking. In his position as director of the International Smoking Cessation Specialist program at the University's Pharmacy School, Frank created a six-hour CE program designed to teach pharmacists how to do smoking cessation counseling, writing the patient support booklets that accompany this training as well as all auxiliary materials. This program has been presented throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, Spain and the United Kingdom to well over 14,000 pharmacists and other healthcare professionals. Frank has also been involved in the creation of a CE program for Pennsylvania physicians and dentists as well as projects incorporating smoking cessation training into the curricula of pharmacy, dental, medical and auxiliary health profession schools.

Frank is currently the National Director of the Pharmacy Partnership for Tobacco Cessation, a project developed under the auspices of The Smoking Cessation Leadership Center of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and ASHP. The partnership is dedicated to creating and disseminating tools and trainings to help pharmacists become involved in cessation counseling with all patients who use tobacco.