E. Richard Brown, the founding director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a leading national advocate for the uninsured, has died. He was 70.
Brown, a professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, suffered a stroke while at a conference in Kentucky and died April 20, the center announced on its website.
"Rick was a tireless advocate for the uninsured throughout his distinguished career...," Gerald Kominski, the center's current director and a professor of public health, wrote on Remembering Rick, a website where friends and colleagues are mourning Brown's death and celebrating his life. "Everyone who worked with Rick in any capacity during his life recognized his intense determination to make health care services more accessible and more affordable to all Americans."
Brown founded the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research in 1994. It has since grown into one of the nation's leading health policy research centers and the premier source of health policy information and analysis on California's population. The center conducts research on a wide range of health issues and provides extensive public service to policymakers, advocates and the media.
Brown was the principal investigator for the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the nation's largest state health survey. The survey provides statewide and local-level health information on California's diverse population and covers a broad range of health topics.
Brown served as a senior health policy adviser to the Barack Obama for President campaign, as a health policy adviser to three members of the U.S. Senate and as a full-time senior consultant to President Clinton's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. Brown wa a past president of the American Public Health Association.
Source: UC--Los Angeles
