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

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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

  • Mapping Ethnic Enclaves for Health Disparities Research: A Hybrid Clustering Approach. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2026 Jul 10.. View in PubMed
  • Racial and ethnic disparities in receipt of guideline-concordant treatment for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer. Cancer Causes Control. 2026 Jul 01; 37(7).. View in PubMed
  • Persistent disparities in head and neck cancer survival in the United States. Cancer Causes Control. 2026 Jun 25; 37(7).. View in PubMed
  • Area-Level Sociodemographic Differences Between Indian Health Service Purchased/Referred and Non-Purchased/Referred Care Delivery Areas. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2026 May 08; 23(5).. View in PubMed
  • Eligibility criteria and study phase limit racial/ethnic enrollment in oncology clinical trials. BMC Cancer. 2026 Apr 17; 26(1).. View in PubMed
  • Socioecological Factors Associated With Lung Cancer Clinical Trial Participation: Real-world California Cancer Registry Data. Clin Lung Cancer. 2026 Apr; 27(3):153-161.e1.. View in PubMed
  • 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
  • The Population Cancer Assessment and Surveillance Engine (PopCASE): An Emerging Population Cancer Data Platform. J Registry Manag. 2025; 52(4):151-154.. View in PubMed