Corinne Leach, PhD, MPH, MS
Senior Principal Scientist, Behavioral Research
what drives me
“I am driven to bring personalized follow-up survivorship care to everyone with a history of cancer. When we learn how to provide high-quality and equitable care that is appropriately linked to an individual’s level of need, we increase the chances that all cancer survivors experience positive outcomes—and that the care they receive is efficient and sustainable for the healthcare system.”
At ACS since 2011
As Senior Principal Scientist of Behavioral Research, Corinne Leach, PhD, MS, MPH, leads survivorship research on behalf of the Population Sciences group. She serves as the Principal Investigator of the American Cancer Society (ACS) survivorship cohorts, including the Studies of Cancer Survivors and the Cancer Survivor Transition Study.
Leach also serves as the ACS-lead for the ACS-National Cancer Institute online self-management platform, Springboard Beyond Cancer, an eHealth tool that empowers cancer survivors to better manage their cancer-related symptoms, live healthier, and improve their communication skills about cancer as well as other health conditions during and after treatment.
Research focus and accomplishments
Leach conducts cancer survivorship research in the areas of aging, cancer-related symptom assessment, and chronic disease self-management. Her research aims to improve the understanding of:
- Behavioral factors that contribute to healthy aging and the best way to promote them.
- The unique experiences of older cancer survivors, such as physical late effects and psychosocial issues.
- Ways to improve survivors’ self-management of cancer-related issues.
She also studies accelerated aging after a cancer diagnosis, including the accumulation of multiple chronic conditions after a cancer diagnosis, and she evaluates the benefits of health behavior interventions, such as chronic disease self-management.
As a Gerontological Society of America Fellow and member of the Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG), Leach serves as a leader in the survivorship and aging field. Specifically, she has:
- Led the development of the ACS Breast Cancer Survivorship Clinical Care Guideline.
- Led a recently published paper in JNCI that identified and prioritized the most pressing research and data needed to create and implement survivorship personalized care pathway models in the US.
To learn more about her work, listen to this podcast about How to Tailor Follow-up Care to Meet the Needs of Every Cancer Survivor.
Publications
For a full list of Dr. Leach's publications, visit her Google Scholar page.
Contact
Professional organizations
- Gerontological Society of America (GSA), Fellow
- Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG), Member
- Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM), Member
Education
- Cancer Prevention Postdoctoral Fellow: National Cancer Institute's Office of Cancer Survivorship, 2008-2011
- MPH: Quantitative Methods, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2009
- PhD: Gerontology, University of Kentucky, 2008
- MS: Experimental Psychology, Villanova University, 2002
Personal life
I live in Midtown Atlanta with my partner Ashish Bisaria and enjoy playing tennis, scuba diving, and going on active adventures around the world.