Anny Fenton, PhD
Faculty Scientist I
Research Interests
- Family communication and its impact on caregiver and patient well-being
- Social and structural factors shaping health and healthcare experiences
Dr. Anny Fenton will join the Center for Interdisciplinary Population and Health Research at the end of March 2026. Dr. Fenton is a medical sociologist who studies how systems, roles, and culture shape health and healthcare experiences with a focus on family cancer caregivers, communication, and social determinants of health. Her long-term goal is to understand how family communication during serious illness shapes quality of life and to build rigorously tested, scalable interventions to improve the lives of caregivers and patients.
A comparison of adult-child and spousal cancer caregivers’ participation in medical decisions. PLoS One. 2024; 19(6):e0300450. View in: Pubmed
Racial and ethnic disparities in cancer caregiver burden and potential sociocultural mediators. Support Care Cancer. 2022 Nov; 30(11):9625-9633. View in: Pubmed
Cancer Caregivers’ Prognostic and End-of-Life Communication Needs and Experiences and their Impact. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2023 01; 65(1):16-25. View in: Pubmed
Patients’ and caregivers’ experiences of hospitalization under COVID-19 visitation restrictions. J Hosp Med. 2022 10; 17(10):819-826. View in: Pubmed
Developing and Field Testing BOLSTER: A Nurse-Led Care Management Intervention to Support Patients and Caregivers following Hospitalization for Gynecologic Cancer-Associated Peritoneal Carcinomatosis. J Palliat Med. 2022 09; 25(9):1367-1375. View in: Pubmed