Original Article on Los Angeles Times

E. Richard "Rick" Brown, the founding director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research who pioneered the collection and wide dissemination of health survey data to influence public policy and was a leading advocate for healthcare reform, has died. He was 70. Brown, who lived in Santa Monica, died April 20 in a hospital in Lexington, Ky., where he suffered a stroke after moderating a panel at a conference on health communication, said his wife, Marianne Parker Brown. A professor in the Department of Health Services at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Brown founded the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research in 1994. One of the center's major activities has been the development of the California Health Interview Survey, the pre...(read more)