Research Interests:
Dr. Vadaparampil?s research program is focused on better understanding patient and provider factors that impact complex decisions related to cancer prevention and control made by individuals at increased risk for cancer. Her work uses a combination of behavioral science, epidemiology, health services, and clinical perspectives to understand these issues at both the patient and provider level. Over the past several years, she has applied these perspectives to several at risk groups including individuals at increased risk for inherited cancer susceptibility, loss of fertility due to cancer related treatment, and most recently, individuals at risk for cancers related to HPV infection.
Dr. Vadaparampil has successfully obtained national peer reviewed grants to support her research program. To further her work in the area of the psychosocial and behavioral aspects of genetic counseling and testing for hereditary cancer, she applied for and was awarded a 5-year national American Cancer Society (ACS) Mentored Research Scholar Grant in 2006 to explore the impact of genetic counseling on recently diagnosed breast cancer patients. That same year, she was also awarded a 2-year R03 Grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to examine knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to genetic testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer among Hispanic women from Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.
Due to observations early on in her career about the importance of physician recommendation in patient uptake and utilization of cancer prevention and screening technologies, she has also been developing a complimentary line of research focusing on health care providers. Her early work focused on physician utilization of genetic testing for hereditary cancer susceptibility. Since then, she has also successfully applied her methodological expertise to design and conduct national physician studies assessing factors associated with recommendation and utilization by providers of other emerging technologies in cancer prevention and control. She serves as the Co-PI of a 3-year national ACS Research Scholar Grant award in 2006 to examine discussion of fertility preservation with cancer patients by physicians in the oncology care setting (e.g., hematologist/oncologists, gynecologic oncologists). In July 2008, she was awarded an R01 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) to examine physician, systems, and policy level factors influencing recommendation of HPV vaccination among a national sample of physicians from three primary care specialties.