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
Rosenberg DE, Lee AK, Anderson M, Renz A, Matson TE, Kerr J, Arterburn D, McClure JB. Reducing sedentary time for obese older adults: protocol for a randomized controlled trial. JMIR Res Protoc. 2018;7(2):e23. doi: 10.2196/resprot.8883. PubMed
McClure JB, Anderson ML. Evaluation of a population-level strategy to promote tobacco treatment use among insured smokers: a pragmatic, randomized trial. BMC Public Health. 2018;18(1):228. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5119-0. PubMed
Bricker JB, Mull KE, McClure JB, Watson NL, Heffner JL. Improving quit rates of web-delivered interventions for smoking cessation: full scale randomized trial of webquit.org versus smokefree.gov. Addiction. 2018 May;113(5):914-923. doi: 10.1111/add.14127. Epub 2018 Jan 26. PubMed
Heffner JL, Watson NL, McClure JB, Anthenelli RM, Hohl S, Bricker JB. "I Smoke Like This to Suppress These Issues That Are Flaws of My Character": Challenges and Facilitators of Cessation Among Smokers With Bipolar Disorder. J Dual Diagn. 2018 Jan 19:1-8. doi: 10.1080/15504263.2017.1390278 [Epub ahead of print] PubMed
Heffner JL, Mull KE, McClure JB, Bricker JB. Positive affect as a predictor of smoking cessation and relapse: does it offer unique predictive value among depressive symptom domains? Subst Use Misuse. 2017 Nov 21:1-9. doi: 10.1080/10826084.2017.1387569. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
McClure JB, Blasi PR, Cook A, Bush T, Fishman P, Nelson J, Anderson ML, Catz SL. Corrigendum to "oral health 4 life: design and methods of a semi-pragmatic randomized trial to promote oral health care and smoking abstinence among tobacco quitline callers". Contemp Clin Trials. 57 (2017) 90-97. 2017 Jul 24. pii: S1551-7144(17)30469-X. doi: 10.1016/j.cct.2017.07.011. [Epub ahead of print]. No abstract available. PubMed
McClure JB, Blasi PR, Cook A, Bush T, Fishman P, Nelson J, Anderson ML, Catz SL. Oral health 4 life: design and methods of a semi-pragmatic randomized trial to promote oral health care and smoking abstinence among tobacco quitline callers. Contemp Clin Trials. 2017 Jun;57:90-97. doi: 10.1016/j.cct.2017.04.003. Epub 2017 Apr 12. PubMed
McClure JB, Heffner J, Hohl S, Klasnja P, Catz SL. Design considerations for mHealth programs targeting smokers not yet ready to quit: results of a sequential mixed-methods study. JMIR mHealth uHealth. 2017 Mar 10;5(3):e31. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.6845. PubMed
Watson NL, Heffner JL, McClure JB, Mull KE, Bricker JB. Differential prevalence of established risk factors for poor cessation outcomes among smokers by level of social anxiety. Am J Addict. 2017 Feb 13. doi: 10.1111/ajad.12509. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Watson NL, Heffner JL, McClure JB, Bricker JB. Relationships between social anxiety and smoking-specific experiential avoidance. J Dual Diagn. 2017 Jan-Mar;13(1):1-5. doi: 10.1080/15504263.2016.1248310. Epub 2016 Oct 14. PubMed
Research
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A mobile application designed to engage smokers who are ambivalent about quitting shows promising results.
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Oral Health 4 Life: 10 years of research to improve smokers’ health and dental care
As Dr. Jennifer McClure completes the last of three innovative studies, she reflects on how the work began, the difference it may make, and what happens next.
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Can being accepting and mindful help you stop smoking?
Tobacco remains a public health priority. Jennifer McClure, PhD, discusses her findings comparing ’acceptance and commitment therapy’ to standard care.
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