Gwen Lapham, PhD, MPH
"My research focuses on primary care, currently in two areas: understanding cannabis use and integration of mental health services for adolescents."
Gwen Lapham, PhD, MPH, MSW
Assistant Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Systems Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
Gwen.T.Lapham@kp.org
206-287-2021
Biography
Gwen Lapham, PhD, MPH, MSW, joined Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in 2013 as an addictions health services researcher. Since then, she has capitalized on her prior social work and health services training to do impactful research on evidence-based primary care for unhealthy substance use, including alcohol, cannabis, and opioids. She has recently begun making strides in understanding cannabis use among primary care patients, including medical use and use among prenatal women.
Dr. Lapham recently completed the CATALyST K12 Washington Learning Health System Program funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. In the program, she partnered with Kaiser Permanente Washington health system leaders and with KPWHRI’s Center for Accelerating Care Transformation to address gaps in the quality of behavioral health care for children and adolescents by developing and testing an integrated approach to adolescent mental health. She expects this work to lead to new evidence for effective implementation of adolescent mental health integrated in primary care.
She is also a co-investigator of the Primary Care Opioid Use Disorders Treatment, or PROUD trial, a pragmatic implementation trial of nurse care management for treatment of opioid use disorders in primary care, as well as the Health Systems node of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network. Dr. Lapham’s research projects specific to cannabis include:
- A pilot study about the prevalence of and reasons for cannabis use among pregnant women. This study uses both cannabis screening results from the electronic health record (EHR) and qualitative interviews.
- Site principal investigator for a multisite study that examined patient-level and system-level factors associated with the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, commonly known as HEDIS, to measure performance for initiation and engagement in treatment for patients with cannabis use disorders.
- Co-principal investigator for a study evaluating EHR documentation of medical use of cannabis. This study employs natural language processing methods to compare EHR data with data from confidential surveys about medical cannabis use.
Prior to working at KPWHRI, Dr. Lapham focused on qualitative and quantitative evaluation of preventive alcohol interventions in medical settings at the Veterans Health Administration in Seattle.
RESEARCH INTERESTS AND EXPERIENCE
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Behavior Change
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Addictions & Unhealthy Substance Use
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Health Services & Economics
Implementation research; quality measurement
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Implementation Research
Screening and brief intervention; mental health quality measurement
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Child & Adolescent Health
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Addictions
Prevention and treatment
Sparc trial tools
Resources for behavioral health integration
The SPARC trial successfully implemented behavioral health care into primary care. On our website, you can access tools for behavioral health integration, as well as frequently asked questions and publications.
Recent publications
Yarborough BJH, Stumbo SP, Schneider JL, Ahmedani BK, Daida YG, Hooker SA, Lapham GT, Negriff S, Rossom RC. Patient perspectives on mental health and pain management support needed versus received during opioid deprescribing. J Pain. 2024 Feb 2:S1526-5900(24)00367-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2024.01.350. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Yarborough BJH, Stumbo SP, Schneider JL, Ahmedani BK, Daida YG, Hooker SA, Negriff S, Rossom RC, Lapham G. Impact of Opioid Dose Reductions on Patient-Reported Mental Health and Suicide-Related Behavior and Relationship to Patient Choice in Tapering Decisions. LID - S1526-5900(23)00614-4 [pii] LID - 10.1016/j.jpain.2023.11.002 [doi] J Pain. 2023 Nov 10:S1526-5900(23)00614-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2023.11.002 [Epub ahead of print] PubMed
Ford MA, Lapham GT, Matson TE, Luce C, Oliver MM, Binswanger IA. Comparing cannabis use for pain to use for other reasons in primary care patients. J Am Board Fam Med. 2023 Oct 31:jabfm.2023.230163R1. doi: 10.3122/jabfm.2023.230163R1. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Wartko PD, Bobb JF, Boudreau DM, Matthews AG, McCormack J, Lee AK, Qiu H, Yu O, Hyun N, Idu AE, Campbell CI, Saxon AJ, Liu DS, Altschuler A, Samet JH, Labelle CT, Zare-Mehrjerdi M, Stotts AL, Braciszewski JM, Murphy MT, Dryden D, Arnsten JH, Cunningham CO, Horigian VE, Szapocznik J, Glass JE, Caldeiro RM, Phillips RC, Shea M, Bart G, Schwartz RP, McNeely J, Liebschutz JM, Tsui JI, Merrill JO, Lapham GT, Addis M, Bradley KA; PROUD Trial Collaborators; Ghiroli MM, Hamilton LK, Hu Y, LaHue JS, Loree AM, Murphy SM, Northrup TF, Shmueli-Blumberg D, Silva AJ, Weinstein ZM, Wong MT, Burganowski RP. Nurse care management for opioid use disorder treatment: The PROUD cluster randomized clinical trial. JAMA Intern Med. 2023 Oct 30:e235701. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.5701. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Matson TE, Williams EC, Lapham GT, Oliver M, Hallgren KA, Bradley KA. Association between cannabis use disorder symptom severity and probability of clinically documented diagnosis. Drug Alcohol Depend.. 2023 Oct 1:251:110946. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.110946. Epub 2023 Aug 23. PubMed
Lapham GT, Matson TE, Bobb JF, Luce C, Oliver MM, Hamilton LK, Bradley KA. Prevalence of cannabis use disorder and reasons for use among adults in a US state where recreational cannabis use is legal. JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Aug 1;6(8):e2328934. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.28934. PubMed
Matson TE, Hallgren KA, Lapham GT, Oliver M, Wang X, Williams EC, Bradley KA. Psychometric performance of a substance use symptom checklist to help clinicians assess substance use disorder in primary care. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(5):e2316283. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.16283. PubMed
McClure EA, Hamilton L, Schauer GL, Matson TE, Lapham GT. Cannabis and nicotine co-use among primary care patients in a state with legal cannabis access. Addict Behav. 2023;140:107621. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2023.107621. Epub 2023 Jan 20. PubMed
Lee AK, Bobb JF, Richards JE, Achtmeyer CE, Ludman E, Oliver M, Caldeiro RM, Parrish R, Lozano PM, Lapham GT, Williams EC, Glass JE, Bradley KA. Integrating alcohol-related prevention and treatment into primary care: A cluster randomized implementation trial. JAMA Intern Med. 2023 Apr 1;183(4):e227083. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.7083. PubMed
Kiel L, Hsu C, Wartko PD, Albertson-Junkans L, Ewing J, Lapham GT. Perspectives from women who engaged in prenatal and postpartum cannabis use in a U.S. State with legal non-medical use. Prev Med Rep. 2022 Nov 29;31:102075. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2022.102075. eCollection 2023. PubMed
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KPWHRI in the media
Frequency of cannabis use disorder in a state with legal use
Cannabis use disorder is common in one state where marijuana is legal
CNN, Aug. 29, 2023
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