CBDSM researchers are interested in applying decision research across a variety of clinical areas, including cancer, organ transplantation, chronic illnesses, and the effect of medical disabilities.

Topics Include:
• Arthritis
• Cancer - breast
• Cancer - colon
• Cancer - other
• Cancer - prostate
• Cancer screening
• Diabetes
• Hyperlipidemia
• Hypertension
• Immune deficiency
• Neonatal intensive care
• Obstetrics
• Transplantation - heart
• Transplantation - kidney
• Transplantation - liver
• Transplantation - Marrow / Stem Cell
• Vaccination

Many cognitive issues affect health communication and the provision of medical care. We seek to further the basic science of cognition research while identifying how these factors influence medical decision making.

Topics Include:
• Affective Forecasting
• Evaluability biases
• Omission/action tendencies
• Preference reversals
• Self-other differences
• Social cognition

Our research has a broad focus on health communication and education. We develop and evaluate decision aids, identify new methods of communicating risk, and study ways to improve doctor-patient communication.

Topics Include:
• Decision aids
• Doctor-patient communication
• Health in the Media
• Numeracy
• Risk communication
• Risk communication graphics

Ethics and decision making are obviously interrelated. CBDSM studies have considered topics ranging from the privacy of health information to physician deception.

Topics Include:
• Bioethics
• Equity/effciency tradeoffs
• Healthcare rationing
• Impaired Decision Making
• Informed consent
• Physician deception
• Privacy of health information
• Research ethics

Because the outcomes of decision research can depend on the methods used, CBDSM researchers devote considerable attention to methods research. Our work ranges from comparing utility elicitation methods and different types of decision aids to developing new measures for survey research.

Topics Include:
• Decision aids
• Ecological Momentary Assesment
• Numeracy
• Person tradeoff (PTO)
• Protected values
• Quality of Life (QoL)
• Survey Methods
• Utility elicitation

More and more, patients are seeking greater involvement in their medical decisions and more detailed information from their health care providers. CBDSM research addresses end-of-life decision making, shared decision making, and how illness effects happiness.

Topics Include:
• Caregiver burden
• Doctor-patient communication
• Emotional Adaptation
• End-of-life decision making
• Prioritization of health concerns
• Privacy of health information
• Quality of life
• Shared decision making
• Social support
• Stigma
• Well-Being and Happiness

Health policy research and decision analysis has traditionally been heavily influenced by concepts of economic rationality. We seek to use the insights of decision psychology to better model people's preferences and how they perceive the tradeoffs that are required in allocating health care resources.

Topics Include:
• Cost effectiveness
• Deliberative democracy
• Equity/efficiency tradeoffs
• Health economics
• Healthcare rationing
• Person tradeoff (PTO)
• Privacy of health information
• Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs)
• Rationing decisions
• Utility elicitation

One of the largest research foci at CBDSM is the study of risk communication and risk perceptions. Our work considers both how risk is understood by people as well as how risk influences health behavior and medical care.

Topics Include:
• Numeracy
• Risk communication
• Risk communication graphics
• Risk perception - scope insensitivity
• Risk perception - time insensitivity
• The experience of being at risk