LOS ANGELES — Frances Lomas Feldman, a University of Southern California professor and social work pioneer who conducted a groundbreaking study in the 1970s that showed cancer patients faced discrimination in the workplace, has died. She was 95.

Feldman died at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena on Tuesday, a week after having a stroke, USC officials announced.

In 1976, she began a multiyear study to investigate the work experiences of people treated for cancer. Her research provided the first systematic evidence that employers and co-workers often imposed harsh, even illegal conditions on cancer survivors, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1985.

Not long after beginning her research, Feldman called the results “disheartening.”

The study of more than 200 Southern California cancer survivors found that more than 50 percent of white-collar workers and 84 percent of blue-collar workers faced discrimination when they returned to work. The affronts included demotions, denial of promotions and withdrawal of health insurance coverage.

The American Cancer Society, which funded the study, used her findings to call attention to the problem. Researchers from around the world continue to seek out Feldman’s research, which was “an early look at a continuing problem,” according to USC officials.

Several states also modified fair employment legislation because of the study, the National Association of Social Workers said on its Web site.

For more than 50 years, Feldman concentrated on the study of the social and psychological meanings of work and life. Her original research on the effect of money stress on families led her to co-found a national network of nonprofit credit counseling services that continues to operate.

After joining USC as a professor of social work in 1954, Feldman was instrumental in establishing the first curriculum in the West devoted to industrial social work, which involves helping people cope in the workplace.

At USC, she also was a key founder of the California Social Welfare Archives, a volunteer organization that preserves the state’s social work history.

“She almost single-handedly was responsible for the discovery and preservation of social welfare history in Southern Cali-fornia,” Marilyn Flynn, dean of the USC School of Social Work, said in a statement.

Among the 10 books Feldman wrote was “Human Services in the City of Angels: 1850-2000” (2004). Her research showed that Los Angeles was a pioneer in social services, reimbursing citizens for taking care of sick strangers as early as 1850 and establishing city-run day-care centers in 1918.

The youngest of six children, she was born Dec. 3, 1912, in Philadelphia to Harry and Devora Lomas, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Her father was a master tailor who moved his family to Los Angeles when she was 8.

At USC, Feldman ran a laundry service to pay tuition and received a bachelor’s degree in 1935. She earned a master’s degree in social work from the university in 1940.

In 1935, she married Albert Feldman, who was so captivated by the stories she told about her job as a social worker for the state that he left behind his work as a research chemist and followed her into the profession. He became deputy director of the USC Andrus Gerontology Center. He died in 1975.

In the late 1960s, officials in Alaska asked Feldman to research the social service needs of the state’s native people, and her observations led to many improvements in basic services, according to USC.

In Alaska, Feldman — then in her 50s — rode in dogsleds and slept in igloos as she traveled to isolated Eskimo villages. The experience made the “natural optimist” want “to know how the rest of the world lived,” her daughter said. Feldman ended up traveling to more than 200 countries.

Although she retired in 1982, Feldman stayed involved with USC. For her 95th birthday, she renewed her driver’s license and received a perfect score on her test, said her daughter, Dona Munker, who is her only immediate survivor.