Dr. Jeffe is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Health Behavior, Communication, and Outreach Core of the Siteman Cancer Center.  Dr. Jeffe studies social support, personal/psychological, and situational factors in relation to health-risk/health-promoting behaviors and emotional adjustment to disease. Her research interests focus on quality of life in cancer patients (including clinical-trial participants and patients in whom quality of life is under-researched, e.g., patients with late-stage lung cancer) and cancer prevention and control in underserved groups. She also has several years experience in behavioral research with patients with HIV.

Dr. Jeffe is principal investigator or co-investigator of several studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (primarily National Cancer Institute) and industry-sponsored clinical trials and was recently awarded a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to identify ways to promote research careers among underrepresented minority physicians. Dr. Jeffe has mentored several graduate students at Saint Louis University School of Public Health in analyses of the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program data for their class projects in Epidemiology, and several of these projects resulted in student co-authored peer-reviewed publications. She has expertise in survey development and validation, psychometrics, qualitative-research design and qualitative-data analysis, and medical- and health-education program evaluations. 

Dr. Jeffe has worked on the evaluation committee of the Program for Elimination of Cancer Disparities (PECaD) in the Siteman Cancer Center and is the Director of Tracking and Evaluation for the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences at Washington University.  She also is an active mentor and collaborator with medical students, residents, and faculty at Saint Louis University and Washington University in a collaborative project with the Rockwood School District to encourage teens to engage in skin cancer prevention behaviors. Dr. Jeffe also was recently elected to her second 2-year term on the Executive Committee to the Faculty Council (ECFC) at Washington University School of Medicine.

What opportunities do you see for interdisciplinary collaboration on public health initiatives in the future?

"I look forward to establishing new collaborations with other researchers in public health, and as Director of the Health Behavior, Communication, and Outreach Core of the Siteman Cancer Center, I have numerous opportunities to help develop and be part of new research relating to cancer prevention and control and to psychosocial outcomes in patients with a variety of diseases and health problems. I hope that I can continue to help my colleagues and the medical and public health students whom I mentor to develop new and exciting research projects. I have a long history of developing successful interdisciplinary collaborations and fully expect to continue down this path in my leadership roles with the Cancer Center and the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences, both locally and nationally."