Lisa M. Lines

Lisa M. Lines, PhD, MPH, has an extensive background in both managing and contributing to successful research projects for both public- and private-sector clients and has more than 20 years of experience in health care research and consulting. She joined RTI in 2009 and has experience with program evaluations, large-scale database analyses (including machine learning and other “big data” methods), and interactive decision-analytic models, as well as literature reviews and policy analyses. She has published in a wide variety of subject areas, including health policy and payment reform, health care quality measurement, risk adjustment, cost-effectiveness and affordability issues, illness burden, and disparities and inequities.

Dr. Lines directs two projects for the National Cancer Institute focused on developing, maintaining, refining, and analyzing large data linkages: the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) - Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) database and the SEER-Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (MHOS) database. These data resources help us understand the associations between care experiences and quality of life, individual and area-level characteristics, quality of care, and outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with and without cancer.

Dr. Lines also co-directs the RTI Rarity project, which has developed Local Social Inequity scores—a new approach to risk prediction and adjustment for social factors using artificial intelligence. In addition, she leads the Social Determinants of Health Workgroup for the HEALing Communities Study focused on the opioid epidemic. She is also a task leader for the national implementation of the Home Health CAHPS survey.

Dr. Lines has been honored by RTI with multiple Innovation Awards (2019-21), five Highly Published Author Awards (2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2010), a Highly Cited Author Award (2017), an Early Career Author Award (2015), an RTI Team Award (2015), an Internal Research & Development Award (2014), and a Professional Development Award (2013). 

She serves as chair of the Health Equity Committee for the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association, serves on the Editorial Board of Medical Care, and co-edits The Medical Care Blog—one of the top academic health/medical blogs in the U.S. In 2018, she received the APHA Medical Care Section Award.