Biography

Lynn DeBar, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and behavioral health researcher. Her work focuses on health issues that have emotional and physical causes and manifestations, including pain syndromes, eating disorders, and obesity-related health problems. She is particularly interested in exploring how these health issues can be addressed and treated in primary care settings, and the role of behaviorally oriented interdisciplinary approaches as well as complementary and integrative health practices in this treatment.

Dr. DeBar’s work builds on research showing that people with emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression, often seek treatment for related physical symptoms, and that people with a variety of physical ailments can benefit greatly from concomitant attention to their emotional and psychosocial conditions. Accordingly, Dr. DeBar develops and evaluates treatment approaches that simultaneously address these complex physical and emotional needs. Dr. DeBar works closely with physicians at Kaiser Permanente and other health care systems to ensure that her research findings make their way into clinical practice, and to identify real-world clinical practices that have the potential to improve service delivery through large-scale adoption of behavioral and lifestyle interventions.

Dr. DeBar holds a PhD in clinical and community psychology, with an emphasis on health psychology, from Yale University. Dr. DeBar also received an MPH from Oregon Health & Sciences University, where she focused on epidemiology and biostatistics. From 2002 to 2017 Dr. DeBar was a Senior Investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon. In 2017 she moved to the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute as a Senior Scientist. She has ongoing studies in both settings and plans to continue bridging the two research units.