Robin Yabroff, PhD, MBA

Scientific Vice President
Health Services Research

Why I'm a Cancer Researcher

My research identifies factors at the patient, provider, health system, and policy levels that can be modified to improve access to and receipt of affordable cancer prevention, screening, treatment, survivorship, and end-of-life care. The underlying goals of this research are to reduce disparities and improve equity in cancer outcomes.”

At ACS since 2018

As Scientific Vice President, Health Services Research, Surveillance & Health Equity Science, Robin Yabroff, PhD, MBA, leads a team of scientists whose research focuses on:

  • Financial hardship and economic burden of cancer
  • Patterns of cancer care, including high cost prescription drugs
  • Health insurance coverage, including benefit design
  • Patient, provider, health system, and geographic factors associated with quality and value of cancer care

The effects of health policies, including provisions of the Affordable Care Act, on access to cancer prevention, screening, survivorship, and end-of-life care

As an expert in these areas, Yabroff is a frequent speaker at national and international meetings and a participant of panels and think tanks.

She holds adjunct faculty positions in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. 

Research focus and accomplishments

Yabroff has received multiple National Institutes of Health Merit Awards for her research leadership and mentorship. She led the development of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS): Experiences with Cancer Survivorship Supplement from 2009 to 2015. The goal of this multi-institutional, collaborative effort was to improve the quality of publicly available data for estimating the burden of cancer in the United States. 

She is a founding member of the Interagency Consortium to Promote Health Economics Research on Cancer (HEROiC).

To learn more about Yabroff's work, listen to the podcast “Preventing Financial Hardship from Cancer.”

Publications

Yabroff has co-authored over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles, invited editorials, commentaries, and book chapters.

She has on-going editorial roles for several journals, including:

  • Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Deputy Editor
  • Journal of Cancer Survivorship, a founding member of the editorial board
  • Journal of Oncology Practice, member of the editorial board

Yabroff has been a guest editor for the:

She has also been a featured guest on the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) podcast.

For a complete list of Dr. Yabroff’s publications, see her Google Scholar page.  

Contact 

robin.yabroff@cancer.org

Work before ACS

  • Office of Health Policy, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, US Department of Health and Human Services
  • Health Services and Economics Branch, National Cancer Institute
  • Lombardi Cancer Center, Georgetown University 

Education

  • PhD: Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
  • MBA: Finance, University of Rochester
  • BS: Biology; BA: Psychology, Indiana University