CHRISTABEL CHEUNG

Dr. Christabel K. Cheung is a social and behavioral scientist whose interdisciplinary health services research examines how social, economic, and organizational conditions shape healthcare access, participation, and equity. Through health services research, community-engaged inquiry, and patient-centered approaches to care delivery, she investigates the institutional and structural conditions that shape whether healthcare is accessible, affordable, and responsive to patients' needs. Her scholarship addresses a central question: Why do people who need healthcare services not always participate in them, and how can healthcare systems better respond to the barriers they encounter?

Grounded in psychosocial oncology and life-course gerontology, Dr. Cheung's research spans three interconnected areas: (1) healthcare access and (non)participation in psychosocial care; (2) the economic burden of disability and healthcare; and (3) equitable institutional policies and practices, community engagement, and Embodied Research. Much of her empirical scholarship focuses on individuals diagnosed with cancer during adolescence and young adulthood (AYA; ages 15–39), examining how treatment-related morbidity, disability, and financial hardship intersect with education, employment, and social participation across long-term survivorship. Her research approaches healthcare (non)participation not simply as an individual behavior, but as an outcome shaped by modifiable organizational and structural conditions.

Dr. Cheung is an Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and a Member of the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center. She directs the Cheung Research Lab, leading interdisciplinary and community-engaged investigations in collaboration with patients, clinicians, researchers, healthcare organizations, and community partners in the United States and internationally. Her research includes organizational influences on psychosocial care participation, anticipatory financial navigation, patient-defined healthcare affordability, and equitable institutional practices. Beyond oncology, her funded collaborations examine equity and accountability in scholarly publishing and international health information pathways.

Drawing on her experiences as both a two-time cancer survivor and a social and behavioral scientist, Dr. Cheung developed Embodied Research, a methodological approach that uses systematic reflection and meaning making to construct embodied knowledge from lived experience and inform scientific inquiry. Introduced in 2017 and subsequently refined through interdisciplinary scholarship, the approach was formalized in her sole-authored methods chapter, Embodied Research Methods: The Empiricism of Lived Experiences to Advance Health Equity (Cheung, 2025). Central to this framework is the distinction between lived experience and embodied knowledge, which is constructed through rigorous reflexive inquiry to illuminate research questions and assumptions that conventional approaches may overlook.

Her scholarship is informed by more than two decades of experience across social work, academic research, organizational leadership, and community-based health and social services. Before her academic career, she held eight years of executive and senior management positions in the San Francisco Bay Area, including serving as Executive Director of San Francisco Village. This experience informs her understanding of the organizational capacities, intersectoral partnerships, and resource constraints that shape healthcare access and service delivery. She also collaborates with health systems, cancer centers, and digital health organizations to translate social and behavioral research into patient-centered approaches to service design, engagement, and care coordination.

Dr. Cheung's scholarship and leadership have been recognized through honors including the American Society of Clinical Oncology's GRASP Patient Advocate Award and the University of Maryland, Baltimore's Camara Jones Faculty Award. Her international scholarly engagement includes the Salzburg Global health equity network, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–supported health sciences infrastructure initiative, and membership in Sigma Xi, the international scientific honor society. Her collaborative research relationships include Michigan Medicine, the University of Southern California, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of California, Irvine, the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center, and The Netherlands Cancer Institute.

She contributes to the cancer survivorship community as a member of the National Scientific Advisory Committee of the ASPIRE Asian American Cohort Study at the University of California, San Francisco; the Scientific Advisory Council of Triage Cancer, ; and the National Community Advisory Council of Connecting Champions, . 

Dr. Cheung earned a PhD in Social Welfare from the University of California, Los Angeles, a Master of Social Welfare in Gerontology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Journalism.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Cheung, C. K., Khan, Z., Blount, B., Jonas, A. M., Betz, G., McKelvie, M. R., Kodisang, P., Malta, M., Mikaere, K., Moorehead, M., Mughal, I., Briceño González, L. A., & McLemore, M. R. (2026). Learning Wellness Systems for Equity: A Bilingual Systematic Review Protocol to Identify Exemplary Data-to-Action Learning Cycles for Wellbeing. Open Science Framework. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/MNSRK

Cheung, C. K., Gupta, N., Lee, H., Griffith, W., Betz, G., Gianelle, M., Nayak, A., Lu, S. C., Thomas, B. N., Miller, K. A., Freyer, D. R., Parsons, S. K., Beauchemin, M., Zhang, A., Psihogios, A., & Roth, M. E. (2026). Beyond the hospital: Understanding psychosocial support uptake for adolescents and young adults with cancer in community-based and nonprofit programs. Cancer Control, 33, 10732748261450729. https://doi.org/10.1177/10732748261450729

Souers, J. D., Thomas, M., Faughnan, J., Fox, M., Gupta, N., Betz, G., Nayak, A., & Cheung, C. K. (2026). Seen, heard, and still missing: Understanding clinical trial nonparticipation among women of color. Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1177/21565333261479352

Waters, A. R., Wheeler, S. B., Fine, J., Cheung, C. K., Tan, K. R., Rosenstein, D. L., Roberson, M. L., & Kent, E. E. (2025). An intersectional analysis of behavioral financial hardship and healthcare utilization among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus cancer survivors. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, djae350. https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djae350

Cheung, C.K. (2025). Embodied research methods: The empiricism of lived experiences to advance health equity. In N. Rezaei (Ed.), Cancers in different conditions, cancer research methods and diagnosis: An interdisciplinary approach (Vol. 19, pp. 201–228). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/16833_2024_432

Cheung, C. K., Miller, K. A., Thomas, B. N., Lee, H., Goings, T. C., Brandon, R. E., Katerere-Virima, T., Helbling, L. E., Simmons, C. D., Ross, V. A., Causadias, J. M., Roth, M. E., Berthaud, F. M., Jones, L. P., Betz, G. D., Carter, J., Davies, S., Gilman, M., Lewis, M. A., Lopes, G., & Tucker-Seeley, R. D. (2024). BIPOC experiences of (anti-)racist patient engagement in adolescent & young adult oncology research and advocacy: An e-Delphi study. Future Oncology, 20(9), 547-561. https://doi.org/10.2217/fon-2023-0771

Cheung, C. K., Jones, L. P., Lee, H., Bridges, J. N., Tucker-Seeley, R. D., Vyfhuis, M. A. L., Gianelle, M., Thomas, B. N., Betz, G. D., Waldo, L., Hirsch, A. S., & Ntiri, S. O. (2023). Anticipatory guidance: Developing a patient navigation pathway to reduce the financial toxicity of cancer. Medical Research Archives, 11(10). https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v11i10.4582

Cheung, C. K., Nishimoto, P. W., Katerere-Virima, T., Helbling, L. E., Thomas, B. N., & Tucker-Seeley, R. D. (2022). Capturing the financial hardship of cancer in military adolescent and young adult patients: A conceptual framework. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 40(4), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/07347332.2021.1937771

Cheung, C. K., Tucker-Seeley, R. D., Davies, S., Gilman, M., Miller, K. A., Lopes, G., Betz, G. D., Katerere-Virima, T., Helbling, L. E., Thomas, B. N., & Lewis, M. A. (2021). A call to action: Antiracist patient engagement in adolescent and young adult oncology research and advocacy. Future Oncology, 17(28), 3743–3756. https://doi.org/10.2217/fon-2020-1213

Cheung, C. K. & Simmons, C. D. (2021). Centering black swans: Embodied research in adolescent and young adult oncology. Oppositional Conversations, (5). http://www.oppositionalconversations.org/issue-v-contestations/2021/5/5/centering-black-swans-embodied-research-in-adolescent-and-young-adult-oncology

Unger, J. M., Moseley, A. B., Cheung, C. K., Osarogiagbon, R. U., Symington, B., Ramsey, S. D., & Hershman, D. L. (2021). Persistent disparity: Socioeconomic deprivation and cancer outcomes in patients treated in clinical trials. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 39(12), 1339-1348. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.20.02602

Cheung, C. K. (2018). Young cancer patients as future leaders in the global knowledge economy. Cancer Therapy and Oncology International Journal, 10(4), 68-71. https://doi.org/10.19080/CTOIJ.2018.10.555795

Dr. Cheung's National Library of Medicine Bibliography:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/christabel.cheung.1/bibliography/public/

Faculty Profile at University of Maryland, Baltimore HERE.