David Eton, PhD

David Eton, PhD serves as Program Director in the Outcomes Research Branch (ORB) within the Healthcare Delivery Research Program (HDRP) at the National Cancer Institute. In this capacity, he oversees grants and contracts in the social and behavioral sciences, provides scientific leadership for the SEER-CAHPS data resource, and engages in intramural research activities in collaboration with colleagues across HDRP.

As a staff specialist, David offers technical guidance to the scientific community, supporting the planning, coordination, and evaluation of research proposals in the social and behavioral sciences. He also works collaboratively with NCI staff to identify and propose new areas of research emphasis for the agency.

A social-health psychologist by training, David is recognized for expertise in the measurement of patient health status and quality-of-life outcomes, particularly among individuals coping with chronic health conditions, including cancer. Prior to joining HDRP, David was a Health Sciences Research Scientist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, beginning in 2009, and was promoted to Professor of Health Services Research in 2019. His research has focused on patient-perceived burdens of treatment and self-management, and he has published extensively across a broad spectrum of health care research, including clinical trials, observational studies, development and psychometrics of patient-reported measures, social and psychological factors associated with stress and health, qualitative and mixed-methods designs, and the clinical significance of patient health-status scores. David has been actively engaged in research spanning all three domains where patient-reported outcome measures are utilized: research, performance/quality, and clinical practice.

David received a PhD in Applied-Experimental Psychology (Specialty: Social Psychology) from Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO, in 1998, and completed an NIMH postdoctoral fellowship in health psychology/behavioral medicine at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, in 2000.