Lihua Liu, PhD

Associate Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences and Spatial Sciences

Director and Principle Investigator of the Surveillance Epidemiology End Results (SEER) Program

Image of Lihua Liu, PhD
Is this your profile? Click to edit

Overview

Dr. Liu holds a Ph.D. in Demography and Medical Sociology from the University of Southern California. She worked as a research scientist at the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program (CSP) for many years, before joining the faculty of the Dept. of Preventive Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine in 2008. Her interest in population and health found the ideal laboratory at the CSP, the population-based cancer registry for Los Angeles County. She was fascinated by the dramatic differences in cancer risk by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status and learned to understand the values and challenges of using cancer registry data for research. She has contributed significantly to the enhancements of cancer registry data nationwide through participation of the developments of population estimates by detailed racial/ethnic groups and better identification of race/ethnicity in cancer registries. Her research interest is in the impact of social, economic, cultural, behavioral, and environmental factors on the development, diagnosis, and survival of cancer. Compelled by the alarming fact that immigrants in the U.S. quickly lose their healthy advantage after arrival, Dr. Liu assembled a multidisciplinary team with 12 faculty members from 8 USC schools to propose a new public health initiative to promote healthy behaviors and lifestyles in immigrants and to enrich and redefine American way of living. This visionary proposal recently received the USC Collaboration Fund Award. The group is poised to explore the new path and to inspire and attract interested faculty and students to join the effort.

Publications

  • Relationships Between Living in Ethnic Enclaves and Cancer Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Literature. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2026 08; 13(4):2565-2577.. View in PubMed
  • Liver Cancer Etiology in Asian Subgroups and American Indian, Black, Latino, and White Populations. JAMA Netw Open. 2025 03 03; 8(3):e252208.. View in PubMed
  • Breast, Colorectal, and Pancreatic Cancer Mortality With Pathogenic Variants in ATM, CHEK2, or PALB2. J Clin Oncol. 2025 05; 43(13):1587-1596.. View in PubMed
  • Prostate Cancer Disparities in Clinical Characteristics and Survival among Black and Latino Patients Considering Nativity: Findings from the California Cancer Registry. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2024 11 01; 33(11):1512-1522.. View in PubMed
  • Reporting tumor genomic test results to SEER registries via linkages. J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr. 2024 08 01; 2024(65):168-179.. View in PubMed
  • Assessing racial, ethnic, and nativity disparities in US cancer mortality using a new integrated platform. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2024 07 01; 116(7):1145-1157.. View in PubMed
  • Distance Between Home and the Admitting Hospital and Its Effect on Survival of Low Socioeconomic Status Population With Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia. Public Health Rep. 2022 Jan-Feb; 137(1):110-119.. View in PubMed
  • Evidence for racial/ethnic disparities in emergency department visits following breast cancer surgery among women in California: a population-based study. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2021 Jun; 187(3):831-841.. View in PubMed
  • Assessing Disparities in Lung Cancer Incidence for Gender Minority Individuals Using California Cancer Registry Data. Chest. 2021 06; 159(6):2491-2493.. View in PubMed
  • Presentation, Management, and Outcomes Across the Rural-Urban Continuum for Hepatocellular Carcinoma. JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2021 02; 5(1).. View in PubMed