Researcher profile

Lisa A Croen

I have been a Research Scientist and perinatal epidemiologist at the Division of Research, at Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) since 2000. Prior to that, I was an Epidemiologist at the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program. I have 18 years of experience working in collaborative multi-site settings and directing research focused on autism spectrum disorders. My studies have included epidemiologic investigations of time trends of prevalence, genetic and environmental risk factors, and prenatal and neonatal biologic markers. An area of expertise relevant to the current proposal is my work in the health services realm regarding occurrence of medical and psychiatric comorbidities and utilization and cost of health services for children and adults with autism spectrum disorders.This work has been summarized in the following publications: a. Croen LA, Najjar D, Ray GT, Lotspeich L, Bernal P. A comparison of healthcare utilization and cost of children with and without autism spectrum disorders in a large HMO. Pediatrics 2006 Oct;118(4):e1203-11. b. Croen LA, Zerbo O, Qian Y, Massolo ML, Rich S, Sidney S, Kripke C. The health status of adults on the autism spectrum. Autism 2015 [Epub ahead of print] PMID:2591101.