Sociology Graduate Heads New Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern
Braindeis Sociology Ph.D. alum Phil Brown is directing a new (and very exciting) interdisciplinary institute at Northeastern University: the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute.
Brown said environmental health researchers should be nimble and attuned to the world’s emerging environmental health issues. Brown, for his part, navigated to the field of environmental health science in the 1980s while working in mental health policy. At the time, a colleague was serving as an expert witness in a high-profile groundwater-contamination case in Woburn, Mass., in which civil suits were brought against two companies following community concerns over rising levels of childhood leukemia and other illnesses.
The Woburn case captured Brown’s attention immediately, compelling him to investigate.
“I spent a lot of time with the families who had been affected, whose children died or became sick, and that really changed my life,” said Brown, who wrote a book on the topic called “No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action.”
Brown soon realized that many other communities grapple with similar environmental health issues, which led him to engage in the larger debate about environmental causes of illnesses. Over the years, he has also examined health-focused social movements in America dating back to the beginning of Medicare and Medicaid.
“You never know where the work will take you next,” said Brown, who earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University. “I’m always looking for interesting new things that are important, that concern people and that have an effect on many people’s lives.”