Biography

Sarah Brothers is an assistant professor of sociology and public policy. She holds a doctoral degree in sociology from Yale University, a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an associate of arts degree from City College of San Francisco. Her research examines how vulnerable groups experience and respond to health-related issues. She primarily uses ethnography, in-depth interviews, and Community Driven Research (CDR) methods to focus on topics including uncredentialed expertise in practices by people who use drugs, overdose responses, methadone treatment, patient perspectives on HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) treatment, and youth homelessness. Her work has received multiple awards and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Mellon/ACLS Foundation, the WW Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies, and others. Her research has been published in journals including Social Science & Medicine, AIDS and Behavior, the International Journal of Drug Policy, and AJPH.

Project Title: “Organized Knowledge Production by People who Use Drugs: Ethical Collaborative Research in Theory and Practice During the Overdose Epidemic”

Abstract:  This project will develop and implement sustainable and ethical Community Driven Research (CDR) with drug-user-lead organizations in the United States. The findings will be used to develop materials for ethical research with vulnerable and criminalized groups, particularly those who use illicit drugs, disseminate through research the information distributed through these networks, and contribute to theoretical work on expertise in vulnerable and criminalized groups by examining how experiential embodied knowledge and practices are constructed, evaluated, and accepted as expertise by the scientific community and by people who use drugs.