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 over more than 20 years in healthcare research and consulting. With RTI since 2009, she 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; risk adjustment; cost-effectiveness and affordability issues; illness burden; and disparities and inequities.

Among other projects, Dr. Lines currently supports the National Cancer Institute in developing, maintaining, refining, and analyzing the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) - Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) linked database. This data resource help us understand the associations between patient experiences, individual characteristics, quality of care, and outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with and without cancer.

Dr. Lines also leads RTI’s Artificially Intelligent Risk Adjustment project, which is developing local social inequity scores -- a new approach to risk prediction and adjustment for social factors using artificial intelligence. In addition, she leads an analysis using national, longitudinal emergency medical services data to understand patterns of acute care for substance use and mental health disorders.

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 US. In 2018, she received the APHA Medical Care Section Award.