Jennifer McClure, PhD
“We create programs and tools to empower people and help them lead healthier lives. By doing so, we can reduce the need for health care and the growing burden of health care costs for all.”
Jennifer McClure, PhD
Director, Investigative Science; Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Professor, Department of Health Systems Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
Jennifer.B.Mcclure@kp.org
206-287-2737
Biography
Jennifer McClure, PhD, is director of Investigative Science at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI). She is also a senior investigator and clinical psychologist whose research focuses on developing new interventions to reduce people’s risk of chronic disease and cancer or help them better manage existing chronic disease through:
- Smoking cessation
- Dietary improvement
- Increased physical activity
- Treatment adherence
- Stress management
- Better oral health
- Informed decision-making
Much of Dr. McClure’s research emphasizes creating highly individualized behavioral treatments that can be disseminated on a population level, through health care systems and tobacco quitlines or directly to individuals via digital health tools, such as mobile health (mHealth) apps. Her goal is to design programs that are effective, convenient, engaging, and cost-effective, understanding that to make the leap from research to real world, interventions should meet these criteria.
Dr. McClure is best known for her research creating novel treatments for nicotine dependence, particularly interventions targeted to smokers who are ambivalent about quitting. These individuals may want to quit smoking some day, but are not yet ready to give up tobacco. Most smokers fall into this category, but few interventions are targeted to this important group. Her research has demonstrated the effectiveness of using proactive counseling and online interventions to motivate and support smoking cessation among ambivalent smokers. Her work has also shed light on the potential risks and benefits of using biological indicators of disease or disease risk to motivate quitting. Now she is developing two new mHealth apps to help ambivalent smokers kick the habit: one designed for anyone who smokes and one designed specifically for smokers living with HIV.
Dr. McClure’s collaborative research covers a range of topics from reducing sedentary behavior to comparing the effectiveness of various strategies for assessing and diagnosing high blood pressure.
In recognition of her scientific contributions, Dr. McClure was named a fellow in the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) in 2013 and a fellow in the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in 2018. In 2019 she joined the faculty of the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J Tyson School of Medicine as a professor in Health Systems Science. Dr. McClure is also an affiliate professor of health services at the University of Washington School of Public Health and an affiliate investigator in the Division of Public Health Sciences at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She currently serves as the Secretary and Treasurer of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.
RESEARCH INTERESTS AND EXPERIENCE
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Behavior Change & Behavioral Medicine
Tobacco cessation; pharmocogenomics of nicotine addiction; treatment adherence; population-based behavior interventions; health risk communications; oral health promotion; dietary change; physical activity promotion; informed decision-making; psychoneuroimmunology; HIV
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Health Informatics & Digital Health
Development of eHealth and mHealth intervention tools
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Mental Health
Depression treatment and development of behavior change interventions for people with serious mental illness
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Cancer
Prevention
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Chronic Illness Management
HIV
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Addictions
Prevention and treatment
Recent publications
Scherer LD, Ubel PA, McClure J, Greene SM, Alford SH, Holtzman L, Exe N, Fagerlin A. Belief in numbers: when and why women disbelieve tailored breast cancer risk statistics. Patient Educ Couns. 2013 Aug;92(2):253-9. doi:10.1016/j.pec.2013.03.016. Epub 2013 Apr 24. PubMed
McClure JB, Riggs KR, St John J, Catz SL. [More] evidence to support oral health promotion services targeted to smokers calling tobacco quitlines. BMC Public Health. 2013 Apr 11;13:336. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-336. PubMed
McClure JB, Shortreed SM, Bogart A, Derry H, Riggs K, St John J, Nair V, An L. The effect of program design on engagement with an internet-based smoking intervention: randomized factorial trial. J Med Internet Res. 2013 Mar 25;15(3):e69. doi: 10.2196/jmir.2508. PubMed
McClure JB, Swan GE, St John J, Fauver R, Javitz H, Bergen A, Nishita D, Niaura R, Munafo M, David S. Pharmacogenetic smoking cessation intervention in a health care setting: a pilot feasibility study. Nicotine Tob Res. 2013 Feb;15(2):518-26. doi: 10.1093/ntr/nts173. Epub 2012 Sep 4. PubMed
Businelle MS, Lam CY, Kendzor DE, Cofta-Woerpel L, McClure JB, Cinciripini PM, Wetter DW. Alcohol consumption and urges to smoke among women during a smoking cessation attempt. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2013;21(1):29-37. doi: 10.1037/a0031009. PubMed
Dillard AJ, Scherer L, Ubel PA, Smith DM, Zikmund-Fisher BJ, McClure JB, Greene S, Stark A, Fagerlin A. Breast cancer anxiety's associations with responses to a chemoprevention decision aid. Soc Sci Med. 2013 Jan;77:13-9. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.10.009. Epub 2012 Nov 2. PubMed
David S, McClure JB, Swan G. Nicotine dependence. Nezu A, Nezu C, Geller PA, Weiner I (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology, Health Psychology, Vol. 9 (149-181). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
McClure JB, Derry H, Riggs KR, Westbrook EW, St John J, Shortreed SM, Bogart A, An L. Questions about quitting (Q(2)): design and methods of a Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) randomized screening experiment for an online, motivational smoking cessation intervention. Contemp Clin Trials. 2012 Sep;33(5):1094-102. Epub 2012 Jul 4. PubMed
Swan GE, Javitz HS, Jack LM, Wessel J, Michel M, Hinds DA, Stokowksi RP, McClure JB, Catz SL, Richards J, Zbikowski SM, Deprey M, McAfee T, Conti DV, Bergen AW. Varenicline for smoking cessation: nausea severity and variation in nicotinic receptor genes. Pharmacogenomics J. 2012 Aug;12(4):349-58. doi: 10.1038/tpj.2011.19. Epub 2011 May 24. PubMed
Cassidy-Bushrow A, Alexander G, Lawrence F, McClure J, Ritzwoller D, Rolnick S, Tolsma D, Johnson C. Ca1-02: Women's perception of cardiovascular disease risk varies by hypercholesterolemia history: making effective nutritional choices. Clin Med Res. 2012;10(3):153. PubMed
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