Scott Brown

Doctoral Student, Department of Human and Organizational Development

Scott Brown’s current research focuses on how interventions for ending family homelessness affect child well-being and family involvement in the child welfare system. His broader research interests include understanding how housing contexts influence child development and maltreatment among socially and economically vulnerable families, evaluation of housing interventions, intersections between housing policy and child and family policy, and the application of rigorous social science methods to inform public policy and social service delivery.

With Dr. Beth Shinn and colleagues at Abt Associates, Scott is engaged in a twelve site experimental study of housing and service interventions for homeless families. The study is following 2,300 families to understand the success of these interventions in ending homelessness and their impact on adult and child well-being. He is also analyzing qualitative interviews conducted with study families to explore mothers’ perceptions of how housing environments and experiences affect their children’s well-being.

Scott is a 2016 recipient of a Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-Being. His dissertation research will focus on understanding processes by which housing interventions for families who experience homelessness may affect children’s outcomes and family involvement with the child welfare system.

He has completed a minor in quantitative methods that includes applications of multi-level modeling, structural equation modeling, latent class analysis and mixture modeling, latent growth curve analysis, factor analysis, and exploratory and graphical data analysis.

Scott’s previous work on housing and homelessness includes examining the effect of pre-purchase homebuyer education on mortgage outcomes in collaboration with the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, helping produce the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report as part of a team of researchers at Abt Associates, and a cost study of annual service usage by individuals experiencing homelessness in Nashville compared to supportive housing interventions.