Education

Ph.D., Family Consumer Sciences Education, The University of Missouri, 1979

Research Focus

Family health literacy and policy, health and food insecurity, rural, low-income family health and well-being; intergenerational, school and other influences on low-income children’s fruit and vegetable intake, and program evaluation

Current Grants

UMCP Cooperative Extension and Agricultural Experiment Station: Family Influence on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Among Rural, Low-Income, Preschool Children: A Preliminary Investigation of Factors Associated with Obesity.  Available as Full report, Powerpoint presentation and Research brief.

UMCP Cooperative Extension:  Sages of the Ages: Stories That Touch and Teach

USDA and UMCP Rural Families Speak: Livin’ on the Byways:  Rural Mothers Speak—a research-based drama.
Overview of: Livin' on Life's Byways: Rural Mothers Speak
Livin' on Life's Byways - Permission Form
Livin' on Life's Byways - Feedback Form

USDA, UMCP, and Maryland Department of Human Resources: Food Stamp Nutrition Education Project FRESH. Reducing or Preventing Weight-Related Disease Through Increasing Fruit & Vegetable Consumption Among Low-Income Elementary Children:  A Family, School and Community-based Research & Extension Intervention Systems Approach. Available as Full report or Powerpoint presentation.

 

Career Highlights

• Selected as the first Herschel S. Horowitz Endowed Chair and Director, Center for Health Literacy
• Author of over 100 articles and seven family and consumer science teaching curricula; speaker at over 100 local, state, national and international conferences
• Director and Co-director of grants and contracts totaling more than $15 million.
• Co-Director, Maryland Family Policy Impact Seminar
• Vice-President, Rural Maryland Council Board; Chair, Health Working Committee; Member, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Rural Health Strategic Plan Steering Committee
• Past President, American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences and former Public Policy Committee Chair; Past-chair, Family Policy Section, National Council on Family Relations
• Recipient of awards including:  George F. Kramer Practitioner of Year; Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar Mentor; Murial Sloan Communitarian Aware, Ruth O’Brien Research Award; American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Chalkley-Fenn Public Policy Visiting Scholar; USDA Honor Award for Nutrition Education for Diverse Audiences; Farm Foundation Outstanding Public Policy Issues Education; Charter Inductee, International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame; Distinguished Alumni, University of Central Missouri; W.K. Kellogg National Leadership Fellow.

Selected Publications

Braun, B. (2009, May). Stories from the by-ways of life: Tales of hope, dreams, and things in-between. Keynote address on Strengthening 4-H Families presented as the Annie E. Casey Distinguished Lecturer at the Children Youth and Families At-Risk National Conference, Baltimore, MD.

Katras, M.J., Dolan, E., Seiling, S., Braun, B. (January, 2009).  The bumpy road off TANF for rural mothers.  Family Science Review 14 (2009). 1-15.

Braun, B. (October, 2008). Rural low-income mothers:  Persistent problems, possible intervention.  Online Journal of Rural Research and Policy. 5 (2008). 1-18.  Available at:  http://ojrrp.org/journals/ojrpp/article/viewFile/44/42

Braun, B. (2008).  Rural Family Policy.  In, Gorham, G. (Ed).  Encyclopedia of Rural America.  Millertown, NY:  Grey House Publishing.  755-759.

Simmons, L. A., Anderson, E. A., & Braun, B. (2008). Health needs and health care utilization among rural, low-income women. Women & Health, 47(4), 53-69.

Grutzmacher, S. & Braun, B. (2008).  Key differences between food secure and food insecure mothers in rural, low-income families.  An analysis of three waves of the Rural Families Speak study.  Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, 2: 81-92.

Simmons, L. A., Braun, B., Charnigo, R. C., Havens, J. R. & Wright, D. W. (2008). Depression and poverty among rural women: A relationship of social causation or social selection? Journal of Rural Health, 24(3), 292-298.

Dolan, E., Braun, B., Katras, M.J., & Seiling, S. (July-September, 2008). Getting off TANF:  Experiences of rural mothers.  Families In Society:  Journal of Contemporary Social Services  89(3). 456-465.

Braun, B. & Williams, S. (2008) Sizing up America: Strategy for public policy engagement. Journal of Family & Consumer Sciences. 100(2), 55-56.

Sanyo, R., Dolan, E.M., Richards, L., Bauer, J., Braun, B. (Spring/Summer, 2008).  Employment patterns, family resources and perception: Examining depressive symptoms among rural, low-income mothers.  Journal of Rural Community Psychology. E11(2).  Available at:  http://www.marshall.edu/jrcp/V11%20N1/Sano.pdf

Simmons, L.A., Dolan, E. & Braun, B. (September, 2007). Rhetoric and reality of  economic self-sufficiency among rural, low-income families:  A longitudinal study. Journal of Family Economic Issues. 28: 489-505.

Braun, B, & Huddleston-Casas, C. (2006).  Laboring toward economic self-sufficiency:  A public policy perspective.  Available at: http://cehd.umn.edu/fsos/assets/pdf/RuralFamSpeak/May_PolicyBrief.pdf

Braun, B. Engaging Unheard Voices, final report to the Kettering Foundation (College Park, MD: The University of Maryland, 2006).  Available at: http://www.sph.umd.edu/fmsc/_docsContribute/UnheardVoices-March2006.pdf.