In graduate school Dr. Badr attended a lecture by renowned communication scholar Steve Duck on the importance of everyday talk and the seemingly mundane aspects of relationships. Most psychologists like to study the "abnormal" and what happens when things go wrong in people's lives, but the idea that the real power of relationships lies in the mundane, everyday experiences that people have with their loved ones resonated strongly with her.

Dr. Badr uses novel methodologies to study family systems and health in order to understand how couples and families influence each other's coping and health behaviors (for better or worse) through their everyday communication and interactions, and how those relationships can be leveraged to improve health and well-being across the cancer prevention and control continuum. Dr. Badr is also interested in trying to operationalize exactly how the "whole" (meaning the couple or family unit), is greater than the sum of its parts (the patient and his/her partner or caregiver as individuals), and in designing psychosocial and behavioral interventions that empower and support families as they cope with the practical, everyday challenges of cancer care that can make it such a stressful and difficult experience.

Dr. Badr's newly funded study, "A Psychosocial Intervention for the Caregivers of Advanced Lung Cancer Patients," is a randomized controlled trial that tests the efficacy of a psychosocial intervention for family caregivers of advanced lung cancer patients in improving caregiver self-care behaviors, physical and emotional quality of life, and satisfaction with care. Unlike typical interventions, which are conducted when the patient is already in hospice, the caregivers in this study receive the intervention when the patient is in active treatment, which is in line with the idea that palliative care interventions should be offered to cancer patients and their families early on in the treatment trajectory.