Master of Public Health Program

A Wealth of Research Opportunities

Brown is home to nine active, nationally renowned public health research centers. Collaboration with these centers provides students the opportunity to learn how to conduct quality health research and to participate in effective community service initiatives. Each center is home to a robust research program; in all, Brown centers have together attracted total funding (for all years) in excess of $250 million. These centers are:

Brown University AIDS Program (BRUNAP)

The AIDS The AIDS Program's central mission is to coordinate the educational activities of the more than 100 affiliated faculty, as well as students, fellows, and medical trainees, and community-based health care providers. The Brown University AIDS Program accomplishes this by coordinating a regular program of research seminars and educational conferences, covering topics ranging from molecular virology to updates on therapeutic advances to the psychosocial needs of people living with HIV and community-based prevention research. BRUNAP arranges a monthly meeting of its clinical task force, has an active program of continuing medical education, and publishes a semiannual newsletter. BRUNAP faculty also oversee an NIH-funded Fogarty AIDS International Research and Training Program fellowship, which has trained more than 50 clinical investigators from the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and India. Kenneth Mayer, MD, Professor of Medicine and Community Health, serves as Director.

Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies

The mission of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies is to promote the identification, prevention, and effective treatment of alcohol and other drug use problems in our society through research, education, training, and policy advocacy. The Center brings together more than 90 faculty and professional staff members from 11 University departments and eight affiliated hospitals. Research and education are the chief activities of the Center. To expand its commitment to substance abuse education, and to train the next generation of researchers, the Center established a post-doctoral training program in alcohol treatment and early intervention research in 1985. More than 50 fellows have completed the program and have gone on to academic careers at major institutions across the country. The Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, located on the grounds of Butler Hospital, is directed by Peter M. Monti, PhD, Professor, Departments of Community Health and of Psychiatry and Human Behavior.

Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine

The Centers’ mission is to advance scientific knowledge and to benefit society by taking a collaborative and transdisciplinary research approach to understanding the central role of behavior in the promotion of health and in the prevention and the management of illness. Recognizing that behavior and lifestyle account for more than 50% of the burden of chronic disease and mortality, the Centers focus on accomplishing behaviors associated with positive health outcomes. Current research studies focus on diverse behaviors including weight loss, physical activity, smoking cessation, nutrition and diabetes management. The Centers also have several career development and training programs including a Transdisciplinary Cancer Research Training Program, Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program, and Postdoctoral Fellowships in Behavioral and Preventive Medicine. Bess Marcus, PhD, Director of the Physical Activity Research Center and Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, serves as Acting Director for the Centers.

Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research

The mission of the Center is to improve health and health care of older persons and others with chronic conditions by advancing the fields of gerontology and health services research. The Center coordinates multidisciplinary research and educational efforts in aging and long-term care, emphasizing improved health and health care for populations of older and chronic disease-afflicted persons. Since the early 1980s, faculty and staff of the Center have obtained research grants and contracts from federal agencies, including the National Institute on Aging, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Mental Health, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Center for Medicaid and Medicare services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration). In addition, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, John A. Hartford Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, Retirement Research Foundation and Milbank Memorial Fund have supported Center research projects. The Center trains postdoctoral clinicians and PhD scientists for health services research in areas such as cancer treatment and prevention, health promotion, long-term care quality, community-based systems of care, health care organizations and methodological approaches to health services research. Richard W. Besdine, MD, Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health, is Director for the Center.

Center for Primary Care and Prevention

The Center for Primary Care and Prevention was established in 1997 to promote research, enrich knowledge and improve practice in primary care and prevention and is home to more than 40 scientists, physicians and educators. The Center is a collaborative effort between Brown University and the Memorial Hospital of RI, where a new facility, the Primary Care Center, serves as a base of operation for faculty and staff. The Primary Care Center houses physician practices in Family Medicine and General Internal Medicine, and provides a unique learning laboratory where innovations in patient care, medical education and research are united. The Center provides a fertile environment for collaboration between behavioral scientists, epidemiologists, nutritionists, physicians and other core faculty and staff. Center faculty are recognized nationally and internationally for their pioneering work in community health promotion, disease prevention, women's health, health access for underserved populations, as well as primary care and family medicine medical education. Faculty research builds on landmark studies, such as the Pawtucket Heart Study, which have helped refine medicine’s knowledge base in areas ranging from women’s health to community health and access to care issues. The Center is also a recruitment site for the NIH Women’s Health Initiative. The Center’s director is Charles Eaton, MD, MS, Professor of Family Medicine.

Center for Clinical Trials and Evidence-Based Healthcare

The Center for Clinical Trials and Evidence-Based Healthcare, established in the fall of 1998, has three areas of focus: 1) Applied and methodological research related to clinical trials and systematic review, 2) HIV/AIDS, and 3) health disparities. The Center currently serves as the Data Coordinating Center for two federally funded, randomized multicenter surgical clinical trials: the Ischemic Optic Neuropathy Decompression Trial, funded by the National Eye Institute, and the Surgical Treatments Outcomes Project for Dysfunctional Uterine Bleeding (STOP-DUB), funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The Center is involved in the international Cochrane Collaboration, an international collaboration that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about health care interventions by preparing, maintaining and disseminating systematic reviews of clinical trials on specific topics. The New England Cochrane Center Providence Office is located within the Center, and it coordinates development of the Cochrane CENTRAL register of controlled trials. The Center also coordinates U.S. activities related to the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Review Group. Kay Dickersin, MA, PhD, Professor of Community Health and Medical Sciences, serves as Director.

Center for Statistical Sciences

The Brown University Center for Statistical Sciences (CSS) commenced operations in the fall of 1995. The primary mission of the Center is to provide a focus of statistical expertise for the Brown research community and to foster research and statistical education in the School of Medicine and the University at large. CSS faculty and staff conduct methodologic research in a number of areas of Biostatistics, including statistical methods for the assessment of diagnostic technology, design and analysis of clinical trials, statistical methods for health services and outcomes research, longitudinal data analysis, methodology for the analysis of observational studies, meta-analysis, and statistical methods for psychiatry and the behavioral sciences. The Center also serves as the Biostatistics core for both national and local biomedical research projects. Owing to its expertise in the evaluation of diagnostic technology, CSS hosts the Biostatistics Center of the American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN), an NCI-funded collaborative group conducting multi-center studies of imaging modalities for cancer screening, diagnosis, and image-guided therapy. In addition to ACRIN, current federally funded collaborative research projects at CSS include the Biostatistics cores of International Breast MRI Consortium, the Brown/Lifespan/Tufts Center for AIDS Research, the Brown/Lifespan Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center, and projects in health services and outcomes research. A graduate curriculum in Biostatistics was organized by Center faculty as a track of the graduate program of the Department of Community Health. The program launched in September 1999 and leads to MS and Ph.D. degrees in Biostatistics. Center faculty also launched the Brown undergraduate concentration in Statistics, in collaboration with departments across the campus. Constantine Gatsonis, PhD, Professor of Community Health, Applied Mathematics and Medical Science, serves as Director.

International Health Institute

The International Health Institute (IHI) was established in 1988 to develop, promote, and coordinate the international health activities of Brown University faculty and students. The mission of the Institute is to apply interdisciplinary perspectives in research and training to improve the health of populations in developing countries. Since its inception, IHI faculty have established research collaborations with institutions in developing countries and developed supervised research experiences for Brown University undergraduate, medical and graduate students with our overseas partners. In addition, the IHI has sponsored advanced training at Brown in clinical medicine, laboratory sciences, epidemiology and social sciences for foreign scientists and physicians. The MPH Program offers additional educational pathways for visiting scientists. Stephen McGarvey, PhD, MPH, Professor of Community Health, serves as Director.

Institute for Community Health Promotion

Building upon several years of community-based research in association with the Center for Primary Care and Prevention, the Institute for Community Health Promotion conducts research on community based health promotion and disease prevention, including work with ethnically diverse and underserved populations. The Center also works on the development of innovative medical education tools, curricula and programs for improving health promotion education. Center faculty maintain strong collaborative relationships with a wide array of medical schools, community service organizations and worksites, as well as with major funding institutions. The Center is directed by Thomas Lasater, PhD,Professor of Community Health.