Claire Snyder, MHS, PhD

Dr. Snyder’s research focuses on the quality of cancer care, with emphasis in two areas: quality of life for cancer patients and cancer survivorship care. 

For her quality-of-life research, she is investigating the use of patient-reported outcome questionnaires in routine oncology practice so that patients’ reports of their symptoms, functioning, and well-being can inform their care in the same way that laboratory tests and imaging studies do. This intervention involves having patients complete questionnaires and providing the responses to their clinicians. Dr. Snyder’s research has investigated technologies to collect patients’ reports and integrate them with the electronic health record, informed the selection of questionnaires to administer, and helped patients and clinicians understand the questionnaire results to address them in practice. Dr. Snyder’s quality-of-life research also seeks to optimize the collection and communication of patients’ reports in clinical trials and other research studies. Dr. Snyder leads the PROTEUS Consortium (Patient-Reported Outcomes Tools: Engaging Users & Stakeholders), which is partnering with over 65 patient, clinician, research, health system, industry, government, policy, and regulatory groups from the U.S. and internationally to promote systematic use of methodologic tools developed to optimize the capture and communication of patient-reported outcomes in research studies and clinical care.

In her cancer survivorship research, Dr. Snyder investigates how to ensure that cancer survivors receive whole-person care. This work includes helping primary care providers and cancer specialists collaborate to address survivors' cancer-related and non-cancer-related care. She also co-chairs the Cancer Control Working Group of the National Cancer Institute-funded Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. In this role, Dr. Snyder researches how best to care for adult survivors of childhood cancer.

Dr. Snyder is widely published in high-impact journals and has received competitive, peer-reviewed funding from the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Dr. Snyder has held various leadership positions in international organizations focused on quality-of-life and quality-of-care.  She is a past president of the International Society for Quality of Life Research. For the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), she served on the Health Services Committee, Quality of Care Committee, Survivorship Care Planning Task Force, and Patient-Reported Outcomes Panel.