Susan Enguidanos, Ph.D., is the Hanson Family Trust Assistant Professor of Gerontology at the Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California, with a joint appointment in the USC School of Social Work. Dr. Enguidanos has a multidisciplinary background evident in her educational and professional history. She obtained her BA in psychology at UCLA, master’s degree in public health at California State University, Long Beach, and her doctoral degree in social work at USC.

Dr. Enguidanos conducts research in the field of palliative care, including a home-based model that is currently being implemented in many Kaiser Permanente facilities nationally. She has conducted extensive research in investigating ethnic variation in access to and use of hospice care, work that led to the development and implementation of theoretically-driven interventions aimed at improving access to hospice care for these populations. Dr. Enguidanos is currently working on understanding care setting transitions for seriously ill patients and developing mechanisms for improving continuity of palliative care for individuals with complicated illness.

She is also Principal Investigator of a study testing a social work intervention to improve care setting transitions among older adults as they move from hospital to home. She serves as the evaluator on several other projects, including a mental health and substance abuse program for older adults and a program aimed at improving the health of seniors with multiple chronic diseases. She has published the findings from her research in several peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of American Geriatric Society, Journal of Palliative Medicine, Journal of Pain & Symptom Management, Journal of Social Work in End of Life & Palliative Care, Social Work in Health Care, and Drugs In Society.

Dr. Enguidanos is the editor of Evidenced-Based Interventions for Community Dwelling Older Adults, a book that examines research focused on improving the health of seniors living in the community. She is associate editor of Home Health Services Quarterly and an active member of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Association of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and has presented results of her work at many of these and other professional meetings and conferences. Further, her research on an end-of-life care model received a national Kaiser Permanente Award for quality and has been replicated in Kaiser facilities throughout the nation. The impact of Dr. Enguidanos’ research has been far-reaching, resulting in the development of programs that are improving the delivery of healthcare nationally for the elderly, indeed, for all patients of any age who require end-life care.

Dr. Enguidanos teaches courses such as Psychological and Social Aspects of Death and Dying, End-of-Life Care and Continuum of Care: Systems Perspective and has a joint appointment with the USC School of Social Work.