About

Carolyn M. Brown, Ph.D., FAPhA, is a Professor of Health Outcomes at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy. She holds the Henry M. Burlage Centennial Endowed Professorship and is a Distinguished Service Professor. Dr. Brown serves as the Graduate Advisor for the Health Outcomes Division and is Co-Director of the Texas Center for Health Outcomes Research and Education (TxCORE). Her research program focuses on patient behaviors and outcomes in chronic diseases, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine cultural and social determinants of health that impact quality, access to care, and patient outcomes, particularly among ethnic minority populations who experience disproportionate health burdens. She has contributed to understanding health disparities, healthcare system barriers, and patient-centered outcomes, with a particular emphasis on chronic illnesses such as sickle cell disease, depression, Parkinson’s disease, and hepatitis C, among others. Dr. Brown's work aims to inform strategies to improve health equity and patient care through research, education, and service.

Research topics

• Mathematics education
• Pedagogy
• Psychology
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• Machine-Learning Prediction of Therapeutic Alliance Quality from Client Readiness to Change and Affective Dysregulation

  2026-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Objective: The aim of this study is to utilize and compare advanced machine-learning algorithms to predict the early quality of the therapeutic alliance based on a multidimensional assessment of client readiness to change and specific facets of affective dysregulation. Methods and Materials: A prospective observational design was utilized, involving n=452treatment-seeking adults initiating outpatient psychotherapy in Canada. Baseline predictor variables were collected prior to the first therapy session using the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). The criterion variable, therapeutic alliance quality, was measured after the fourth session using the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI). Missing data (<2.5%┤) were handled via multiple imputation. The dataset was standardized and split into an 80%training set (n=361) and a 20%testing set (n=91). Support Vector Regression (SVR), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), and Random Forest (RF) models were trained and compared using randomized grid search with 10-fold cross-validation. Findings: The sample had a mean age of M=34.6(SD=11.2) years. Preliminary analyses indicated that the WAI Total Score correlated positively with URICA (r=.46,p<.01) and negatively with DERS (r=-.52,p<.01). On the testing set, the Random Forest model demonstrated the highest predictive accuracy (R^2=.67, RMSE =7.15), outperforming the MLP (R^2=.56, RMSE =8.22) and SVR (R^2=.48, RMSE =8.95) algorithms. SHAP feature importance analysis of the RF model revealed that the strongest negative predictors of the alliance were the DERS Strategies (M.Abs.SHAP=2.84) and Goals (M.Abs.SHAP=2.45) subscales. The URICA Action stage (M.Abs.SHAP=2.10) and Precontemplation stage (M.Abs.SHAP=1.95) emerged as the most significant positive and negative motivational predictors, respectively. Conclusion: Advanced machine-learning models can accurately forecast the early quality of the therapeutic alliance, computationally demonstrating that specific baseline deficits in emotion regulation and distinct motivational stages are fundamental determinants of the therapeutic bond.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring contemporary public perceptions of historical redlining practices in the United States

  Computational Urban Science · 2026-01-23

  articleOpen access

  Redlining is a discriminatory practice of systematically denying loans or mortgages to residents in specific neighborhoods based on racial or ethnical composition. In current literature research, there is a lack of understanding of the public perceptions of impacts of historical redlining practices at large geographic scales. Although some social groups and organizations conducted surveys or interviews to obtain public perceptions of it on small groups of people in certain areas, our knowledge of the impacts of redlining is limited and may reflect bias. This study used geotagged tweets from 2011 to 2023 to investigate public perceptions of redlining practices in U.S. counties. Multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) was performed to explore both spatial heterogeneity and varying scales of associations between percentage of redlining-related geotagged tweets with negative sentiment and potential explanatory shaping factors in U.S. counties. Counties with a higher average household size, a higher percentage of people aged 45+, a lower homeownership rate, and a higher mobile home percentage have a significant association nationwide with more negative-sentiment expression in redlining-related tweets. However, counties with a lower insurance coverage are less likely to express negative sentiment in redlining-related tweets in some eastern U.S. counties, indicating a local significant association. The findings help people better understand the relationship between public perceptions of redlining practices and potential shaping factors. This study's methodology can also be applied to investigate public perspectives or perceptions on other controversial social topics.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Seeing Teaching and Learning Differently: A Case Study of How Second Grade Teachers and their Students in Texas Make Sense of Instruction

  Early Childhood Education Journal · 2025-11-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract How early elementary teachers instruct their students new information matters. However, in contexts like the United States, early elementary school classrooms are becoming more regulated and standardized, which leaves little room for teachers to engage in instructional activities that offer their students choice and voice in their learning. This matters because such learning activities improve students’ social and emotional development and increase their interests in such academic areas as literacy and mathematics. Two key groups that are often absent from these conversations about what types of learning experiences should be occurring in early elementary school are the classroom teachers themselves and their students. We begin to attend to this issue by presenting findings from a case study that examined how two classrooms of second graders and their teachers in Texas made sense of how students should be taught new information in school. Examining these teachers and students’ sensemaking of instruction reveals several opportunities for early childhood stakeholders to support teachers in early elementary classrooms so that they can engage in a range of teaching practices that allow all their students to thrive as learners in and out of school.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Preparing the next generation of scholars to produce and defend case study research: an evaluative case study

  Pedagogies An International Journal · 2025-03-27

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Examining how to support the next generation of critical scholars seeking to transform systems of education: an evaluative case study

  Higher Education · 2025-06-27

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Biopolitical Kindergarten: A Critical Qualitative Examination of the Intersection Between Policymakers’ Neoliberal Reforms and Children’s Figuring of Themselves as Learners

  Culture Studies &#x2194 Critical Methodologies · 2024-08-05 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This critical qualitative policy research study examines the intersection between policymakers’ neoliberal kindergarten reforms and children figuring themselves as learners within a publicly funded schooling community. Engaging in this examination of the biopolitical kindergarten space, which is shaped by standardized teaching and learning experience designed to prepare kindergarteners for the high-stakes reforms that await them in later grades, creates the opportunity to consider whether school spaces are designed to prepare the next generation of democratic citizens. It also provides insight as to how critical qualitative policy researchers can investigate as well as propose tangible policy responses through their work that seek to change the current era of policymakers schooling children through their neoliberal reforms.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Principals’ Instructional Leadership and Support Needs in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten: A Case Study in Texas

  AERA Open · 2024-10-23 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In states that fund public prekindergarten and kindergarten in elementary schools, principals are central to ensuring these programs support children’s learning and development. Yet few studies explore how principals position these programs within their instructional leadership and what they perceive should be done by district leaders to support their efforts to lead these programs. This case study investigated these issues with a sample of elementary school principals (N = 14) working in Texas. Using a modified conceptual lens that categorizes four essential dimensions of instructional leadership for prekindergarten and kindergarten, we found that principals possessed insight into many of these leadership practices but often did not enact these visions due to the academic performance pressures of the upper grades. Furthermore, principals wanted additional support from their district and state administrators to lead their prekindergarten and kindergarten programs better. Such findings illuminate several opportunities to strengthen principals’ instructional leadership of prekindergarten and kindergarten.

  PublisherDOI

• “By Any Means Necessary”: A Case Study Examining How School Leaders Facilitated Community Connectedness in the Early Years of Elementary School

  Leadership and Policy in Schools · 2024-07-02

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Elementary school principals play a central role in inducting families into their school communities. As early childhood programs, such as prekindergarten, increasingly become part of elementary schools, this role is expanding. Yet, principals often struggle to establish and maintain such relationships, particularly with many of the historically disenfranchised communities that prekindergarten programs are often designed to serve; these struggles are troubling because success in the early years of schooling can lead to sustained and positive impacts for students as they progress through schooling. Furthermore, few studies have investigated this issue. In this article, we do so by employing Yosso's Communities of Cultural Wealth to examine how a collection of principals working in Texas described their interactions with the children and families as they entered the early grades of their schools and what these principals hoped these children and families would gain from their early childhood education programs. Our findings revealed strengths and growth areas in their descriptions of fostering the cultural wealth of the children and families entering their schools, which provides an opportunity to consider how to support and train principals as well as the structural changes that need to be addressed to support principals in these activities.

  PublisherDOI

• The long-run effect of historical redlining practices on social vulnerability in U.S. cities

  Cities · 2024-11-29 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Continuing to critically engage with DAP to foster democratic teaching and teacher education in neoliberal early education contexts

  International Journal of Early Years Education · 2024-04-27 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• David P. Barry

  The University of Texas at Austin

  19 shared

• Da Hei Ku

  University of Massachusetts Boston

  19 shared

• Joanna Englehardt

  The University of Texas at Austin

  13 shared

• Kate Puckett

  Eastern Oregon University

  9 shared

• Natalie Weber

  Yale University

  5 shared

• Lauren C. McKenzie

  The University of Texas at Austin

  4 shared

• Brian Mowry

  4 shared

• Felipe Amin Filomeno

  University of Maryland, Baltimore County

  4 shared

Labs

• Health Outcomes DivisionPI

Education

• Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction

  University of Wisconsin Madison

  2004

Awards & honors

• Henry M. Burlage Centennial Endowed Professor