Shannon Brownlee
Special Advisor to the President
Shannon Brownlee, MSc, is special advisor to the president of the Lown Institute. Brownlee was senior vice president of the Lown Institute from 2012 to 2021. She played a pivotal role in the creation and development of the Institute’s signature project, the Lown Institute Hospitals Index, the first ranking to measure hospital social responsibility. The Index, first launched in July 2020, evaluates hospitals on equity, value, and outcomes, and includes never-before-used metrics such as avoiding overuse, pay equity, and racial inclusivity.
At the Lown Institute Brownlee guided the development of the Right Care series of papers published by The Lancet in 2017; convened six national conferences attracting more than 200 attendees annually and featuring world-renowned leaders in health care; and led other Lown Institute projects such as the Working Group on Medication Overload and the Shkreli Awards. Along with Lown Institute president Dr. Vikas Saini, she is co-chair of the Right Care Alliance, a network of activist patients, clinicians, and community leaders devoted to organizing a broad-based movement for a radically better health care system.
Before joining the Lown Institute, Brownlee served as acting director of the health policy program at the New America Foundation. As a senior fellow at New America, she published the groundbreaking book, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, which was named the best economics book of 2007 by the New York Times.
She was a senior writer at US News and World Report and Discover Magazine, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Congressional Commendation, and was named one of “four writers who changed the world” by the World Congress of Science Journalists. Her stories and essays have appeared in such publications as The Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Times of London, Time, New Republic, Los Angeles Times, and Health Affairs. Brownlee is a nationally recognized speaker, has been featured in documentary films, and has appeared on such broadcast outlets as the ABC World News, Good Morning America, Fox News, NPR, and the Diane Rehm Show.
Brownlee was formerly a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is currently a lecturer in the Department of Policy and Management at the George Washington University School of Public Health. She is a member of the board of the Robert Graham Center of the American Academy of Family Practice and holds a master of science from the University of California, Santa Cruz.