Biography

Lynn DeBar, PhD, MPH, is a clinical psychologist and behavioral health researcher. Her work in recent years has focused primarily on the health care service needs of patients with chronic pain, particularly those with complicating comorbid conditions. She conducts both large-scale epidemiological studies examining the impact of health care policies on patient receipt of pain-related behavioral health and complementary and integrative health services, and pragmatic trials of multidisciplinary biopsychosocial treatment approaches for primary care patients with pain. Dr. DeBar works closely with physicians at Kaiser Permanente and other health systems to ensure that her research findings make their way into clinical practice and to identify real-world clinical practices with the potential to improve service delivery through large-scale adoption of behavioral and lifestyle interventions.

Dr. DeBar serves on the National Advisory Council for the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and has been the principal investigator of projects funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

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 on the faculty of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon. In 2017, she moved to Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute as a senior investigator. She has ongoing studies in both settings and plans to continue bridging the two research units. She is an affiliate professor in the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.