Elyse Park, PhD, MPH
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Associate Director, Survivorship Research and Psychosocial Services for the MGH Cancer Center
Director of Behavioral Sciences,
MGH Tobacco Treatment & Research Center
Director of Behavioral Research, MGH Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine Massachusetts General Hospital
Bio
Dr. Park is clinical health psychologist and health services researcher who focuses on understanding and improving health-related behaviors and quality of life functioning across the continuum of patients at risk for cancer through to cancer survivors. Clinically, she treats cancer survivors at the MGH Behavioral Medicine Clinic. An Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital in Boston, her research is conducted at the Health Policy Research Center. She has dual leadership roles directing the behavioral science research at the MGH Cancer Center’s Survivorship Program and the MGH Tobacco Research & Treatment Center. She directs the MGH Division of Clinical Research’s Qualitative Unit and has extensive mixed methods research experience, developing interventions and surveys. She also has extensive experience developing smoking cessation counseling interventions for patients at risk for cancer, cancer patients, and cancer survivors, as well as delivering telehealth motivational interventions. She is the PI of a multisite study integrating tobacco treatment into the care of newly diagnosed patients, and she just received funding to conduct an R01 trial to implement this treatment into the care of patients at NCI-affiliated community cancer centers. She is a recipient of a National Cancer Institute K24 mentoring award, which focuses on integration and dissemination of tobacco treatment interventions into clinical care. She is MPI of an NCI-funded trial to integrate tobacco treatment into lung screening across Mass General Brigham.
Dr. Park has an extensive portfolio of research integrating motivational and mind-body interventions into clinical care settings, including an NCI-funded mulitsite R01 trial on smoking cessation integrated into cancer care. She has received external funding from the American Cancer Society, the Livestrong Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Marino Foundation to support her clinical research. At the MGH Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, Dr. Park developed an evidenced-based program, the Stress Management and Resiliency Training-Relaxation Response Resiliency Program (SMART-3RP). She is currently the lead investigator and mentor for several mind-body behavioral trials, assessing the feasibility and potential efficacy of integrating the relaxation response and the SMART-3RP into hospital based group treatments. The SMART-3RP is currently being delivered and tested with many vulnerable medical and clinician populations, and Dr. Park has received external funding to investigate the efficacy of this program with cancer center interpreters and parents of children with special learning needs.
Current Projects
National Institutes of Health
Implementing a Virtual Tobacco Treatment in Community Oncology Practices
Goals: To conduct an effectiveness-implementation trial to assess virtual delivery of an evidence-based tobacco treatment intervention in cancer community sites affiliated with the newly established ECOG-ACRIN NCI Community Oncology Research Program.
Role: Principal Investigator
National Institutes of Health
Assessing the Integration of Tobacco Cessation Treatment Into Lung Cancer Screening
Goals: This project will address the integration of a virtual tobacco cessation treatment into lung cancer screening in a large integrated health care delivery system by integrating into its LDCT-LCS sites a novel, personalized, evidence-based smoking cessation intervention in English and Spanish.
Role: Principal Investigator
American Cancer Society
Developing a Heath Insurance Navigation Program for Children
Goals: To conduct a mixed methods study among Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) participants to develop a health insurance navigation program (HINP), conduct a randomized pilot trial comparing the HINP to enhanced usual care (n=80), and refine the HINP for future use.
Role: Principal Investigator
Publications
Dr. Park on PubMed
Education
BA, Tufts University
MPH, Harvard School of Public Health
PhD, Clinical Psychology, Yeshiva University
Fellowship, Miriam Hospital/Lifespan