In his career as a social psychologist, Dr. Hill has focused on identifying strategies to help patients, families, and clinicians cope with health threats and serious illness.

He currently works with Dr. Chris Feudtner at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) on research topics that apply social psychology to different aspects of pediatric palliative care and chronic pediatric illness including psychological distress, anxiety, and financial distress among parents of children with serious illness; distress among clinicians, how clinical teams can work together to introduce parents to palliative care; good parent beliefs; hopeful thinking; how parents develop new goals when a child’s health is declining; the well-being of siblings of children receiving palliative care; and identifying pediatric patients who are unable to communicate. 

Dr. Hill has also helped develop an online support group for adolescents considering weight-loss surgery, design and implement a behavioral weight-loss intervention for overweight adolescents and their parents, and implement a childhood obesity and bullying prevention intervention conducted in a pediatric primary care setting.
Before coming to CHOP, Dr. Hill worked on research related to psychosocial and behavioral aspects of cancer screening, treatment and survivorship, childhood injury prevention, and the relationship between media exposure and adolescent risk behaviors.

The underlying theme of his research is that serious illness is frightening and can be overwhelming for patients, families, and clinicians. Providing quality medical care and accurate information to patients and their families is necessary but not always sufficient to improve their outcomes. Many patients, families, and clinicians need additional support to help them manage the stress, powerful emotions, and demands associated with serious illness and negotiating a complex healthcare system.