Dr. Fola May is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Director of Quality Improvement in Gastroenterology at UCLA Health, Director of the May Health Services Research Laboratory, and Associate Director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. She is a practicing gastroenterologist with formal training in epidemiology and health services research and conducts research in multiple health care settings (academic, Veterans Affairs, Federally Qualified Health Centers, community) to understand and address multilevel barriers and facilitators to utilization of cancer prevention services. The aims of these studies are to improve population preventive health strategies, increase access to preventive services, and eliminate health disparities.

In the project titled "Multilevel health system intervention to increase surveillance colonoscopy for high-risk colorectal polyps," Dr. May and her collaborators aim to improve the care of patients who have been diagnosed with high-risk colorectal polyps. The project will harness the strengths of a multidisciplinary team representing clinical medicine, health services research, biomedical informatics, population health, and implementation science at UCLA Health to test the effectiveness of a multilevel, technology-assisted intervention that automates high-risk neoplasia (HRN) patient identification, colonoscopy referral, and follow-up while offloading busy providers tasked with managing surveillance for their patients. Overall, the intervention aims to increase participation in surveillance colonoscopy among patients with a personal history of high-risk colorectal polyps and elevated risk for colorectal cancer.

Increasing awareness about colorectal cancer prevention is an area that Dr. May is very passionate about, and she is involved in advocacy at the state and national level to develop and encourage policy to improve healthcare delivery and health equity.