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
Hamilton LK, Lapham GT, Day A, Black-Watson M, Bishop D, Parsons D, Budimir CA, Baulckim L, Lee AK, Addis M, Bradley KA. Improving alcohol-related care in small-medium primary care practices: An evaluation of an adaptation of the SPARC trial intervention for small-medium sized practices. J Subst Use Addict Treat. 2025 Apr 12:209697. doi: 10.1016/j.josat.2025.209697. Online ahead of print. PubMed
Simon GE, Stewart CC, Richards JE, Ziebell R, Lapham GT, Hoopes AJ. Accuracy of self-report questionnaires and records-based risk scores to identify adolescents' risk for self-harm. Psychiatr Serv. 2025 Mar 19:appips20240427. doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.20240427. Online ahead of print. PubMed
Young-Wolff KC, Chi FW, Campbell CI, Alexeeff SE, Ansley D, Vanderziel A, Lapham GT. Frequency of preconception and prenatal cannabis use and nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. Obstet Gynecol. 2025 May 1;145(5):519-522. doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000005884. Epub 2025 Mar 13. PubMed
Bradley K, McCormack J, Addis M, Hamilton LK, Lapham GT, Jonas D, Bishop D, Parsons D, Budimir C, Sanchez V, Bannon J, Villalobos G, Krist AH, Walunas T, Day A. Do electronic health records used by primary care practices support recommended alcohol-related care? JAMIA Open. 2024 4;7(4):ooae125. doi: 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooae125. eCollection 2024 Dec. PubMed
Lapham GT, Hyun N, Bobb JF, Wartko PD, Matthews AG, Yu O, McCormack J, Lee AK, Liu DS, Samet JH, Zare-Mehrjerdi M, Braciszewski JM, Murphy MT, Arnsten JH, Horigian V, Caldeiro RM, Addis M, Bradley KA. Nurse care management of opioid use disorder treatment after 3 years: A secondary analysis of the PROUD cluster randomized clinical trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2024 Nov 4;7(11):e2447447. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.47447. PubMed
Lapham GT, Bobb JF, Luce C, Oliver MM, Hamilton LK, Hyun N, Hallgren KA, Matson TE. Prevalence of cannabis use disorder among primary care patients with varying frequency of past-year cannabis use. J Gen Intern Med. 2025 Apr;40(5):1039-1047. doi: 10.1007/s11606-024-09061-6. Epub 2024 Oct 24. PubMed
Young-Wolff KC, Chi FW, Lapham GT, Alexeeff SE, Does MB, Ansley D, Campbell CI. Changes in prenatal cannabis use among pregnant individuals from 2012 to 2022. Obstet Gynecol. 2024 Aug 30;144(4):e101-4. doi: 10.1097/AOG.000000000000571. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Young-Wolff KC, Chi FW, Campbell CI, Does MB, Brown QL, Alexeeff SE, Ansley D, Wang X, Lapham GT. Association of psychiatric and substance use disorders with cannabis use and cannabis use disorder during early pregnancy in northern California. Addiction. 2024 Jul 31. doi: 10.1111/add.16622. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Hamilton LK, Bradley KA, Matson TE, Lapham GT. Discriminative validity of a substance use symptom checklist for moderate-severe DSM-5 cannabis use disorder (CUD) in primary care settings. Drug Alcohol Depend Rep. 2024 Jul 15:12:100260. doi: 10.1016/j.dadr.2024.100260. eCollection 2024 Sep. PubMed
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
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KPWHRI In the media
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Medscape, Dec. 19
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