A social cognitive psychologist working at the intersection of psychology, medicine, and health policy.
Laura Scherer is an Associate Professor and PhD social cognitive psychologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She serves as Associate Director of the Colorado Program for Patient Centered Decisions and is a member of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, with appointments in the University of Colorado Division of Cardiology and the VA Denver Center of Innovation.
Dr. Scherer's interdisciplinary research integrates psychology with clinical medicine to improve how people interpret and use health information. This work examines how cognitive and emotional processes — such as affect, trust, and medical decision-making styles — influence responses to health information and medical recommendations. Through NIH-funded research, she has investigated personalized cancer risk communication, breast cancer screening decision-making, and strategies to improve clinician communication. The overarching goal is to leverage psychological science to improve support for patient-centered care and evidence-informed decision making.
Appointments & Service
Appointments
Associate Professor, University of Colorado School of Medicine
Division of Cardiology, University of Colorado
Associate Director, Colorado Program for Patient Centered Decisions
Member, University of Colorado Cancer Center
VA Denver Center of Innovation
Editorial and society service
Editorial Board, Medical Decision Making
Special Interest Group Coordinator, Society for Medical Decision Making
I trained as a social cognitive psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. As I neared the end of my PhD program, I became interested in debates in medicine about how to understand and weigh the benefits and harms of cancer screening. One issue that captured my attention was overdiagnosis, which is the detection of cancers through screening that would never have caused symptoms or harm during a person's lifetime. The concept challenges the intuitive assumption that finding cancer earlier is always better, and highlights that tradeoffs that often accompany even well-intentioned medical interventions.
I became fascinated by the psychology underlying these debates. Why do people differ so dramatically in how they interpret the same evidence? Are those differences driven by risk perceptions, personal experiences, values, trust in medicine, or a more general orientation toward seeking or avoiding medical intervention? How do clinicians and patients navigate situations where there is no single "right" answer, but instead a balance of competing benefits and harms?
These interests led me to a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan Center for Bioethics and Social Science in Medicine. There, I was introduced to the Society for Medical Decision Making and learned how to apply theories and methods from psychological science to medicine and health policy. This training provided a framework for studying how patients and clinicians evaluate medical evidence, make decisions under uncertainty, and navigate preference-sensitive healthcare choices.
After completing my postdoctoral training I joined the University of Missouri as an Assistant Professor, intending to return to my roots in basic psychological science. Yet the clinical questions I had encountered during my fellowship continued to motivate me most. In 2018, I was recruited to the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where I made the transition to a fully applied research environment. Since then, I have secured more than $8 million in federal and foundation funding to support a research program that applies psychological science to improve patient-centered care and promote evidence-informed medical decision making.