Dr. Lee believes addressing health disparities means optimizing health systems to better meet the needs of minority and other underserved communities, especially the uninsured. His approach to research, then, is to use science in collaboration with healthcare organizations, providers, and other community stakeholders to improve cancer prevention and cancer care delivery in safety-net health settings. As a medical anthropologist, he is sensitive to the social contexts of both target populations and organizational partners. To better understand those dynamics, his studies implement evidence-based strategies, then deploy rigorous quantitative and qualitative designs to evaluate effects before, during, and after intervention. He has previously designed and led evaluations of a novel delivery model for rural breast cancer screening and patient navigation, as well as colorectal cancer screening in a major urban integrated safety-net system.

Nearly 70% of people living with cancer are "complex patients" with multiple chronic conditions who must deal not only with effects of their cancer but also continuing diseases such as diabetes, depression, hypertension, or heart disease. However, survivors are often lost in transition between primary and oncology care, resulting in fragmented and poor-quality care. Care coordination strategies shown to be effective in improving outcomes for common medical conditions seen in primary care have not yet been evaluated for cancer survivors. Working with a multidisciplinary team, Dr. Lee's R01 tests care coordination strategies on system- and patient-level outcomes using a quasi-experimental design. Then, his team will elucidate factors that facilitate or hinder implementation and result in differences in experiences of care coordination between complex patients with and without cancer.