Brian Karl Finch

Photo of Brian Finch
Sociologist and Professor of Public Policy
Santa Monica Office

Education

Ph.D. in sociology, University of Texas at Austin

Overview

Biography

Brian Karl Finch is a Sociologist and Professor of Public Policy at RAND and a Health Disparities Scholar with the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (National Institutes of Health). He is also a core member of the RAND Center for Population Health and Health Disparities. Before joining RAND, Dr. Finch was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Scholar in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his B.A. in Peace & Conflict Studies and Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Finch's work crosses the disciplinary boundaries of social demography, social epidemiology, and medical sociology to investigate the causes and correlates of population health disparities, specifically socioeconomic and race/ethnic disparities in health outcomes and behaviors among adults and biological/social interactions across the early life-course. He is a Principal- or Co Principal- Investigator on several NIH- and DHHS-funded projects researching population health disparities. His research also explicitly addresses the effect of neighborhood context on health behaviors using multi-level methodologies including hierarchical linear models and complex survival models.

Research Focus

Selected Publications

Finch BK, Cohen DA, Bower A, "Collective Efficacy and Obesity: The Potential Influence of Social Factors on Health. -- 2006," Social Science & Medicine, 62(3):769-778, 2006

Frank, Reanne and Brian Karl Finch, "Los Años de la Crisis: An Examination of Change in Differential Infant Mortality Risk Within Mexico," Social science & medicine, 59(4):825-835, 2004

Finch, Brian Karl, Reanne Frank, and William A. Vega, "The Effects of Acculturation and Acculturation Stress on Migrant Farm-Workers' Health," International Migration Review, 38(2), 2004

Finch, Brian Karl and William A. Vega, "Acculturation Stress, Social Support, and Self-Rated Health among Latinos in California," Journal of Immigrant Health, 5(3):109-117, 2003

Finch, Brian Karl, "Early Origins of the Gradient: The Relationship between Socio-Economic Status and Infant Mortality in the United States," Demography, 40(4):675-699, 2003

Finch, Brian Karl, Ralph C. Catalano, Raymond W. Novaco, and William A. Vega, "Employment Frustration and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence among Mexican Labor Migrants," Journal of Immigrant Health, 5(4):181-186, 2003

Finch, Brian Karl, "Socio-Economic Gradients & Low Birth-Weight: Empirical and Policy Considerations," Health Services Research, 38(6):1819-1842, 2003

Finch, Brian Karl, Robert A. Hummer, Maureen Reindl, and William A. Vega, "The Validity of Self-Rated Health among Latino(a)s," American Journal of Epidemiology, 155(8):755-759, 2002

Finch, Brian Karl, Jason D. Boardman, and Robert A. Hummer, "Race, Birth-weight, and Maternal Reports of Childhood Respiratory Disease in the United States," Population Research and Policy Review, (20):187-206, 2001

Publications

Preventing Obesity and Its Consequences: Highlights of RAND Health Research - 2011

Neighborhood Effects on Health: Concentrated Advantage and Disadvantage - 2010

Neighbourhood Socioeconomic Status and Biological 'Wear and Tear' in a Nationally Representative Sample of US Adults - 2010

Does Mental Health History Explain Gender Disparities in Insomnia Symptoms Among Young Adults? - 2009

Improving Disparity Estimates for Rare Racial/ethnic Groups with Trend Estimation and Kalman Filtering: An Application to the National Health Interview Survey - 2009

Do Neighborhood Economic Conditions Influence the Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables? - 2008

Does Place Explain Racial Health Disparities? Quantifying the Contribution of Residential Context to the Black/white Health Gap in the United States - 2008

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Fruit and Vegetable Intake Among Whites, Blacks, and Mexican Americans in the United States - 2008

Sample Designs for Measuring the Health of Small Racial/ethnic Subgroups - 2008

The Built Environment and Collective Efficacy - 2008

Community Characteristics Associated with HIV Risk Among Injection Drug Users in the San Francisco Bay Area: A Multilevel Analysis - 2007

How Neighborhoods Can Reduce the Risk of Obesity - 2007

Neighborhood Context and Ethnicity Differences in Body Mass Index: A Multilevel Analysis Using the NHANES III Survey (1988-1994) - 2007

Collective Efficacy and Obesity: The Potential Influence of Social Factors on Health - 2006

Hispanic Concentration and the Conditional Influence of Collective Efficacy on Adolescent Childbearing - 2006

Early Origins of the Gradient: The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Infant Mortality in the United States - 2004

Los Anos De La Crisis: An Examination of Change in Differential Infant Mortality Risk Within Mexico - 2004

Acculturation Stress, Social Support, and Self-Rated Health Among Latinos in California - 2003

Designing Multidisciplinary Biobehavioral Research on Prematurity and Low Birth Weight: Methodological Considerations - 2003

Employment Frustration and Alcohol Abuse/dependence Among Labor Migrants in California - 2003

Socioeconomic Gradients and Low Birth-Weight: Empirical and Policy Considerations - 2003