Eliza Brown
I am a sociologist who specializes in reproduction. I am particularly interested in temporality and anticipation, the role of money in medical interactions, and how medical providers and patients communicate about chance and risk. I use qualitative methods, including ethnography, depth interviews, and discourse analysis. My work has been published in American Sociological Review, Journal of Health & Social Behavior, Social Science & Medicine, Socio-Economic Review, and Sociological Forum. I am writing a book based on my dissertation research on how fertility providers and patients negotiate the chance of twins as a byproduct of fertility treatments (under contract with University of Chicago Press). I received my PhD in sociology from New York University in 2021.
Brown, Eliza. 2025. "Doctor, How Much Does it Cost? Moral Values and Price Talk in a Stratified Consumer Medical Market." Socio-Economic Review.
Brown, Eliza. 2023. "Switching Clinics: Patient Autonomy over the Course of Their Careers in Consumer Medicine." Journal of Health and Social Behavior 64(2): 228-242.
Brown, Eliza. 2022. "Less Like Magic, More Like a Chore: How Sex for the Purpose of Pregnancy Becomes a Third Shift for Women in Heterosexual Couples." Sociological Forum 37(2):465-485.
Brown, Eliza. 2020. "Projected diagnosis, anticipatory medicine, and uncertainty: How medical providers ‘rule out’ potential pregnancy in contraceptive counseling." Social Science & Medicine 258: 113118.
Brown, Eliza, and Mary Patrick. 2018. "Time, anticipation, and the life course: egg freezing as temporarily disentangling romance and reproduction." American Sociological Review 83(5):959-982.