
Dr. Pollak is a social psychologist who designs and tests behavioral interventions to promote smoking cessation, reduce health disparities, and improve clinician-patient communication. She also is one of the heads of the Palliative Care Research Cooperative that supports multi-site palliative care trials. Finally, Dr. Pollak serves as a Communication Coach where she teaches clinicians effective communication techniques.
Area of expertise: Health Behavior
Education and Training
- University of Houston, Ph.D. 1996
Selected Grants and Awards
- Duke KURe Program
- Cancer Treatment Disparities in the HIV Population: Exploring the Impact of HIV on Physician and Patient Decision-Making
- Duke CTSA (KL2)
- Duke CTSA (TL1)
- The Mathematics of Breast Cancer Overtreatment: Improving Treatment Choice through Effective Communication of Personalized Cancer Risk
- Optimizing a standalone text messaging-based weight loss intervention
- Examining Best Practices for Factoring Out-Of-Pocket Expenses into Patients' Health Care Decisions
- Improving Advance Care Planning in Oncology: A Pragmatic, Cluster-Randomized Trial Integrating Patient Videos and Clinician Communication Training
- Palliative Care Research Cooperative Group (PCRC) Refinement and Expansion
- Teaching palliative care clinicians Motivational Interviewing
- SMS scheduled gradual reduction text messages to help pregnant smokers quit
- PAPNavigator STTR (Fast-Track)
- Addressing Tobacco Use Disparities through an Innovative Mobile Phone Intervention: The textto4gosmokelesstobacco
- HIV cure studies: risk, risk perception, and ethics
- Improving Communication Between Cancer Patients and Oncologists Using Patient Feedback on Actual Conversations and the ABIM Maintenance of Certification
- Translation of a Lung Cancer Palliative Care Intervention for Clinical Practice
- Impact of a PCRC-Supported Legacy Intervention in Pediatric Palliative Care
- A Woman's Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP) program at Duke University School of Nursing
- Refinement and Expansion of the Palliative Care Research Cooperative Group
- TRIADIC EXPECTATIONS: DECISION-MAKING IN ADVANCED CANCER
- Improving Communication Between Cancer Patients and Oncologists Using Patient Feedback on Actual Conversations and the ABIM Maintenance of Certification
- Teen CHAT:Improving physician communication with adolescents about healthy weight
- Communication in Oncologist Patient Encounters: A Patient Intervention
- OB CHAT
- En Pareja: A Latino couples intervention to help expectant fathers quit smoking
- Smoking Resumption-Prevention in Postpartum Women
- Obesity as a Barrier to Patient-Physician Communication
- Hypertension Improvement Project (HIP)
- Race effects in oncologists' end-of-life communication
- Enhancing patient-oncologist communication
- Testing Pharmacological Therapies for Pregnant Smokers
- Partner Assisted Interventions For Pregnant Smokers
- Recruiting Teen Smokers Into A Self-Help Quit Program