As a psychology major, Laura Green Brown ’90 didn’t expect she would end up helping to keep the nation’s food supply safe. “I did not have it on my radar,” she says. But for the past 20 years, Brown has worked at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga., as a behavioral psychologist, helping prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness at places like restaurants and delis.
How does a psychologist’s wheelhouse come into play at the CDC? Brown explains that since many outbreaks originate with human actions, it’s important to study and understand the human behavior. Outbreaks are “often due to people engaging in improper food preparation practices. So we want to understand why they engage in those practices,” says Brown, who is leader of the Safe Food Team.
Take norovirus outbreaks in restaurants, for instance. It’s often due to an employee who comes to work sick and handles food, Brown explains. “We work to understand why sick workers come in sick,” she says. Finances play a role, but so do other factors. Some workers say they don’t want to leave their co-workers short-staffed. And it often happens in places where managers are inexperienced. Having good staffing plans and a policy about when to call in sick can help.
“We work to understand why sick workers come in sick.”
Brown says there are hundreds of foodborne illness outbreaks across the country every year, many of them originating in a retail setting. The CDC provides resources to help local and state health departments go out in the field, interview restaurant workers and gather data on safety practices.
Brown says she changed majors at NC State several times before she took a psychology course that fascinated her. “I loved the research aspect of it — designing studies to solve problems and the potential to help people through behavioral science.” Public health, she says, is a great place to do that.
Photograph courtesy of the CDC.
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