Megan E. Hamm, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Medicine. As a qualitative methodologist, she specializes in the collection and analysis of interview, focus group, and observational data. As Director of Qualitative, Evaluation, and Stakeholder Engagement Services, she has participated in more than 40 research projects about an array of different topics that frequently fall under one of the following general topics: evaluation of medical educational programming, the formative evaluation of behavioral and programmatic interventions, provider communication, the adoption of new health technologies, sexuality and reproductive health, pain management, substance use in pregnancy, and stakeholder engagement.
Outside of work, Dr. Hamm enjoys tending houseplants and spending time with her children. She has a soft spot for novels set in Japan.
Education & Training
- BA, University of Pittsburgh, 2003
- PhD (Anthropology), University of Pittsburgh, 2012
Representative Publications
Hamm M, Evans M, Miller E, Browne M, Bell D, Borrero S. "It's her body": low-income men's perceptions of limited reproductive agency. Contraception. 2019;99(2):111-117.
In semi-structured interviews with 58 low-income men, they described feeling a lack of agency regarding when pregnancies occurred, including the belief that women should control contraception and reproduction, a reluctance to have conversations about contraception in some contexts, a lack of acceptable male-controlled contraceptive methods, experiences with pregnancy-promoting behaviors by women, and fatalistic attitudes towards pregnancy occurrence.
Hamm M, Miller E, Jackson Foster L, Browne M, Borrero S. "The financial is the main issue, it's not even the child": exploring the role of finances in men's concepts of fatherhood and fertility intention. American Journal of Men’s Health. 2018;12(4):1074-1083.
Semi-structured interviews revealed the salience of financial stability in preparation for fatherhood, suggesting that integrating financial counseling and job skills training into the context of sexual and reproductive health services could be a useful structural intervention to increase men’s use of family planning services and to provide them with the support they say they need as fathers.
Kennedy AJ, McNeil M, Hamm M, Cameron FA, Carter AE. Internal medicine resident perceptions of patients with substance use disorder after attending a mutual support group meeting. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2019.
Implementing an educational intervention on mutual support groups gives residents an experience that impacts attitudes toward patients with substance use disorder and confidence with mutual support group referrals.
Hamm M, Williams K, Nikolajski C, Celedonia KL, Frank E, Swartz HA, Zickmund SL, Stein BD. Readiness to implement an evidence-based psychotherapy: perspectives of community mental health clinicians and administrators. Psychiatric Services. 2015;66(10):1109-1112.
In semi-structured interviews, administrators and clinicians expressed similar beliefs about facilitators and barriers related to implementing interpersonal and social rhythm therapy, including the challenge of high no-show rates, which was not identified as a barrier in previous research.
Click here for a more complete bibliography of Dr. Hamm's works.
Research Interests
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Qualitative methodology
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Evaluation
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Patient experience
- Medical educational programming