Justin Clapp, PhD, MPH

Justin Clapp is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the Perelman School of Medicine and Associated Faculty in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a linguistic/medical anthropologist who uses qualitative methods along with anthropological theory to examine issues in health care communication, medical decision making, and empirical bioethics. Much of his recent work has focused on better understanding how providers and patients decide on preference-sensitive, elective treatment options in perioperative contexts (surgery, anesthesia, intensive care). The goal of this work is to develop models of decision making better tailored to the intricacies of provider-patient interaction.

Dr. Clapp is also researching the communication of pain in clinical settings, the intersection of medicine and social determinants of health, the norms and practices of research ethics review, and several topics in medical education. He teaches courses in the Anthropology department and the MPH program, and he collaborates with investigators across the Perelman School of Medicine on qualitative projects. He received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and his MPH from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.