Basic Information

Name: Marla Clayman
Title: Research Health Scientist
Institution: Department of Veterans Affairs, USA (Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research – CHOIR)
Discipline: Public Health
Years of experience: 20

Research

Primary methodological research approach:

• Health literacy
• Message design
• Oncology
• Patient education
• Patient–provider relationship
• shared decision making

Focus of research in communication and healthcare:

• Implementation research
• Microanalysis of face-to-face dialogue
• Mixed methods
• Video analysis

Description

Three keywords describing expertise and interest:

1. shared decision making
2. patient engagement

Description of field of expertise, major interests, and consultation topics:

Dr. Clayman’s work spans the entirety of the patient and family experience. She conducts both qualitative and quantitative research about patient information needs, shared decision making, and how decisions fit into patients’ and families’ lives. She is particularly interested in the theory and measurement of shared decision making.

Brief biography:

Dr. Marla Clayman is an internationally known health services and health communication researcher with two decades’ experience in designing and carrying out studies related to patient engagement and healthcare decision making. She works to create and sustain environments that help patients and families receive and use information that best meets their emotional and cognitive needs. In recent years, she has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Akershus University Hospital and University of Oslo Faculty of Medicine and served as Chair of the Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section of the American Public Health Association. She has served as the principal investigator on projects funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society. Dr. Clayman completed her graduate work at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and post-doctoral training as a Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute. She currently works as a core Investigator at the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research (CHOIR) in the Veterans Health Administration (USA) and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the UMass Chan School of Medicine.