University of Colorado Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

​Prior to joining UCD in 2012, I was a Senior Research Scientist at New England Research Institutes (NERI) in Watertown, Massachusetts, where I directed the Center on Patient-Provider Relationships and the Center for Qualitative Research. My research is in the areas of medicine, health, and illness; health policy; clinical decision making; variations in medical practice; health disparities; and comorbid physical and mental illness. AT NERI I was PI on a NIMH-funded R01 study of sources of stigma in primary care decision making in co-occurring mental and physical illness, and I am continuing this work under a subcontract to University of Colorado Denver. I was also Co-PI (with Dr. John McKinlay) on a recently completed NIH-funded study of cognitive bias in physician decision making in coronary heart disease (CHD) and a collaborator on related decision making studies of diabetes, CHD, and depression. Prior to joining NERI in 2005, I was faculty in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. My work has appeared in, among other outlets, American Journal of Sociology, Social Psychology Quarterly, Social Science and Medicine, Sociology of Health and Illness, Medical Decision Making, Health Policy, and Health Services Research. I have taught courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels in medical sociology, social theory, social psychology, sociology of gender, and introduction to sociology. Currently, I am Director of the Undergraduate Major in Public Health and teaching the Capstone course for majors. 

​Welch, Lisa C., Karen E. Lutfey, Eric Gerstenberger, Matthew Grace, and John B. McKinlay. In press. “A Pathway to Variation in Physicians’ Decisions for Men and Women with Coronary Heart Disease: The Double-edged Sword of ‘Atypical Symptoms’” Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Lutfey, Karen E., Eric Gerstenberger, and John B. McKinlay. In press. “Physician Styles of Patient Management as a Source of Disparities: Cluster Analyses from a Factorial Experiment.” Health Services Research.

Lutfey, Karen E., Stephen C. Campbell, Lisa D. Marceau, Martin Roland, and John B. McKinlay. 2012. “Influences of organizational features of healthcare settings on clinical decision making: Qualitative results from a cross-national factorial experiment.” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness, and Medicine 16(1):40-56.

Freese, Jeremy and Karen E. Lutfey. 2011. “Fundamental Causality: Challenges of an Animating Concept for Medical Sociology.” Pp.67-81 in B. Pescosolido, J. Martin, J. McLeod, and A. Rogers (Eds.), Handbook of Medical Sociology. New York: Springer.

Boyer, Carol A. and Karen E. Lutfey. 2010. “Examining Critical Health Policy Issues Within and Beyond the Clinical Encounter: Patient/Provider Relationships and Help-Seeking Behaviors.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51: Suppl S80-93.

Lutfey, Karen E., Kevin W. Eva, Eric Gerstenberger, Carol L. Link, and John B. McKinlay. 2010. “Physician Cognitive Processing as a Source of Diagnostic and Treatment Disparities in Coronary Heart Disease: Results of a Factorial Priming Experiment.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51(1):16-29.

Lutfey, Karen E. and John B. McKinlay. 2009. “What Happens Along the Diagnostic Pathway to CHD Treatment? Qualitative Results Concerning Cognitive Processes.” Sociology of Health and Illness 31(7): 1077-92.

Lutfey, Karen E., Carol L. Link, Richard W. Grant, Lisa D. Marceau, Ann Adams, Sara Arber, Johannes Siegrist, Markus Bönte, Olaf von dem Knesebeck, and John B. McKinlay, Ph.D. 2009. “Diagnostic certainty as a source of medical practice variation in coronary heart disease: Results from a cross-national experiment of clinical decision making.” Medical Decision Making 29(5): 606-18.

Lutfey, Karen E., Carol L. Link, Richard W. Grant, Lisa D. Marceau, and John B. McKinlay, Ph.D. 2009. “Is certainty more important than diagnosis for understanding race and gender disparities?:  An experiment using coronary heart disease and depression case vignettes.” Health Policy 89(3): 279-287.

Lutfey, Karen E., Stephen M. Campbell, Megan R. Renfrew, Lisa D. Marceau, Martin Roland, and John B. McKinlay. 2008. “How are patient characteristics relevant for physicians’ clinical decision making in diabetes?: An analysis of qualitative results from a cross-national factorial experiment.” Social Science and Medicine 67(9): 1391-1399.

Lutfey, Karen and Jeremy Freese.  2007. “Ambiguities of Chronic Illness Management and Challenges to the Medical Error Paradigm.” Social Science and Medicine 64: 314-25.

Lutfey, Karen and Jeremy Freese.  2005. “Toward Some Fundamentals of Fundamental Causality: Socioeconomic Status and Health in the Routine Clinic Visit for Diabetes.” American Journal of Sociology 110(5): 1326-72.​