Rate My Professor Lia Scott

Lia C. Scott, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in the Division of Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, having joined the faculty in July 2024. She earned her PhD and MPH in Epidemiology from Georgia State University School of Public Health, where she served as an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award fellow, and holds a BS in Chemistry from Elizabeth City State University. Prior to her current position, Scott completed a postdoctoral fellowship as a Steven M. Teutsch Prevention Effectiveness Fellow in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her research centers on elucidating how social and structural factors influence breast cancer etiology, with a particular emphasis on breast cancer among Black women. She investigates the role of structural racism measures as predictors of breast cancer subtype at diagnosis from a multilevel perspective, employing spatial epidemiologic methods to advance health equity and disparities research across various health outcomes. Scott's current project, funded by the American Association for Cancer Research, utilizes restricted-access cancer registry data for the entire United States to conduct descriptive epidemiologic studies on Black/white differences in breast cancer diagnosis by subtype, spatial analyses of county-level rates by race and subtype associated with structural racism measures, and multilevel and latent variable models to assess structural racism's impact on individual-level outcomes.

Scott's contributions promote equity in public health through spatial and social epidemiologic methods, focusing on health equity, chronic disease prevention, and community health. She has published key works including 'Predicted Heart Age Among Cancer Survivors — United States, 2013–2017' in MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (2021) and 'Update on triple-negative breast cancer disparities for the United States: A population-based study from the United States Cancer Statistics database, 2010 through 2014' in Cancer (2019). Additionally, she serves as an Associate Editor for Preventing Chronic Disease, a CDC journal. Her Google Scholar profile reflects 608 citations, underscoring her influence in spatial epidemiology, health disparities, structural racism, and cancer epidemiology. Scott is also affiliated with UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute and teaches Epidemiologic Methods I (PBHLTH 250A).