Gwen Lapham, PhD, MPH

Gwen Lapham

"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

  • Behavior Change

  • Addictions & Unhealthy Substance Use

  • Health Services & Economics

    Implementation research; quality measurement

  • Implementation Research

    Screening and brief intervention; mental health quality measurement


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

Campbell CI, Saxon AJ, Boudreau DM, Wartko PD, Bobb JF, Lee AK, Matthews AG, McCormack J, Liu DS, Addis M, Altschuler A, Samet JH, LaBelle CT, Arnsten J, Caldeiro RM, Borst DT, Stotts AL, Braciszewski JM, Szapocznik J, Bart G, Schwartz RP, McNeely J, Liebschutz JM, Tsui JI, Merrill JO, Glass JE, Lapham GT, Murphy SM, Weinstein ZM, Yarborough BJH, Bradley KA. PRimary Care Opioid Use Disorders treatment (PROUD) trial protocol: a pragmatic, cluster-randomized implementation trial in primary care for opioid use disorder treatment.  Addict Sci Clin Pract. 2021;16(1):9. doi: 10.1186/s13722-021-00218-w.  PubMed

McClure JB, Lapham G. Tobacco quitline engagement and outcomes among primary care patients reporting use of tobacco or dual tobacco and cannabis: an observational study.  Subst Abus. 2020 Dec 3:1-6. doi: 10.1080/08897077.2020.1846665. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Yeung K, Richards J, Goemer E, Lozano P, Lapham G, Williams E, Glass J, Lee A, Achtmeyer C, Caldeiro R, Parrish R, Bradley K. Costs of using evidence-based implementation strategies for behavioral health integration in a large primary care system.  Health Serv Res. 2020 Dec;55(6):913-923. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.13592. PubMed

Matson TE, Lapham GT, Bobb JF, Johnson E, Richards JE, Lee AK, Bradley KA, Glass JE. Cannabis use, other drug use, and risk of subsequent acute care in primary care patients.  Drug Alcohol Depend. 2020 Aug 8;216:108227. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108227. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Williams EC, McGinnis KA, Rubinsky AD, Matson TE, Bobb JF, Lapham GT, Edelman EJ, Satre DD, Catz SL, Richards JE, Bryant KJ, Marshall BDL, Kraemer KL, Crystal S, Gordon AJ, Skanderson M, Fiellin DA, Justice AC, Bradley KA. Alcohol use and antiretroviral adherence among patients living with HIV: is change in alcohol use associated with change in adherence? AIDS Behav. 2021 Jan;25(1):203-214. doi: 10.1007/s10461-020-02950-x. PubMed

Bradley KA, Lapham GT, Lee AK. Screening for drug use in primary care: practical implications of the new USPSTF recommendation. JAMA Intern Med. 2020 Jun 9. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.7335. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Chavez LJ, Bonny AE, Bradley KA, Lapham GT, Cooper J, Miller W, Chisolm DJ. Medication treatment and health care use among adolescents with opioid use disorder in Ohio. J Adolesc Health. 2020 Apr 7. pii: S1054-139X(20)30043-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.01.016. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Boudreau DM, Lapham G, Johnson EA, Bobb JF, Matthews AG, McCormack J, Liu D, Samet JH, Campbell CI, Rossom RC, Binswanger IA, Yarborough BJH, Arnsten JH, Cunningham CO, Glass JE, Murphy MT, Zare M, Hechter R, Ahmedani B, Braciszewski JM, Horigian VE, Szapocznik J, Samet JH, Saxon AJ, Schwartz RP, Bradley KA. Documented opioid use disorder and its treatment in primary care patients across six US health systems. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2020 Mar;112S:41-48. doi: 10.1016/j.jsat.2020.02.001. PubMed

Sayre M, Lapham GT, Lee AK, Oliver M, Bobb JF, Caldeiro RM, Bradley KA. Routine Assessment of Symptoms of Substance Use Disorders in Primary Care: Prevalence and Severity of Reported Symptoms. LID - 10.1007/s11606-020-05650-3 [doi]  J Gen Intern Med. 2020 Jan 23. pii: 10.1007/s11606-020-05650-3. doi: 10.1007/s11606-020-05650-3 [Epub ahead of print] PubMed

Williams EC, Bobb JF, Lee AK, Ludman EJ, Richards JE, Hawkins EJ, Merrill JO, Saxon AJ, Lapham GT, Matson TE, Caldeiro R, Greenberg DM, Kivlahan DR, Bradley KA. Effect of a care management intervention on 12-month drinking outcomes among patients with and without DSM-IV alcohol dependence at baseline.  J Gen Intern Med. 2019 Aug 20. doi: 10.1007/s11606-019-05261-7. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

 

Research

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News

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Research

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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