Suepattra May, Ph.D., MPH

Assistant Research Anthropologist, Health Services Research

Suepattra May, Ph.D., MPH, is an Assistant Research Anthropologist in the Department of Health Services Research at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute. In this position, Dr. May is responsible for conducting and overseeing qualitative social science and ethnographic research and data analyses across projects focused on patient medical decision making and its potential impact on clinical outcomes. Dr. May’s current research includes a study examining the role of spouses, partners and other members of a patient’s social network in potentially influencing decision making and investigating how treatment experiences may impact subsequent medical decisions and adherence to therapy. Separately, she supervises the management of the Partners in Medical Decision Making Program, a demonstration project funded by the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making to study the best methods for creating a sustainable model of shared decision-making and decision aid use in primary care practice.

Dr. May received her doctorate in Medical Anthropology from the Joint Program in Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley & San Francisco and her master’s degree in Public Health in health services with an emphasis on the social and behavioral sciences from the University of Washington. In addition to research in decision making, Dr. May has worked on a variety of health topics that have integrated her social science and public health training, conducting research in both domestic and international settings on the health of women and adolescents. Her current research interests include breast cancer treatment related decision making, and women’s reproductive health and cancer related health disparities. Dr. May is the recipient of several prestigious fellowships, including the University of California President’s Research Fellowship in the Humanities and the Graduate Dean’s Health Sciences Fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also a reviewer for several scientific journals, including the Journal of General Internal Medicine and Gender Medicine.

Grant Funded:

TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE INFLUENCE OF SIGNIFICANT OTHERS ON BREAST CANCER PATIENTS’ TREATMENT JOURNEYS