The Science
The THRIVE Framework™ did not emerge from theory. It emerged from a sustained body of peer-reviewed scientific investigation that Dr. Brown led, contributed to, and published across more than a decade of federally grounded research. As an offspring of the NIH Resilience Framework, THRIVE carries the evidentiary weight of that research program into organizational practice, translating confirmed science into a framework that health systems, foundations, and policy organizations can operationalize. What follows is the scientific record on which THRIVE is built.
Resilience Science
The publications in this cluster represent the scientific foundation from which the NIH Resilience Framework emerged. They span the conceptualization and operationalization of the framework, the application of resilience science to immune function and cognitive performance, and the cross-domain integration of resilience research across federal institutions. Together they establish a coherent and sustained body of peer-reviewed scientific investigation produced at the federal level and confirmed by the field.
Pitcher, M.H., et al. (2026). Advancing resilience science through cross-domain integration: Proceedings of an NIH workshop. Dr. Brown organized and led the NIH workshop that produced these proceedings, bringing together cross-domain scientific expertise to advance the integration of resilience science across disciplines. Her role as workshop organizer and lead represents the intellectual and organizational leadership behind this body of work, with acknowledged contributor credit in the published proceedings.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2026.106660
---
Rovira, I.I., Brown, L.L., Galis, Z.S., et al. (2025). Health and aging trajectories: shared and competing risks and resiliencies for chronic diseases associated with aging: A NIH-wide workshop. Frontiers in Public Health, 13.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1462217
This publication extends resilience science into the domain of chronic disease and aging, examining how shared and competing risks and resiliencies interact across the lifespan and establishing the cross-systems relevance of resilience science to population-level health outcomes.
---
Brown, L., Cohen, B., Costello, R., Brazhnik, O., and Galis, Z. (2023). Conceptualizing a resilience research framework at The National Institutes of Health. Stress and Health.https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.3260
This publication established the conceptual foundation of the NIH Resilience Framework, naming the scientific and organizational rationale for a federal resilience research program and providing the definitional infrastructure for resilience science at the institutional level.
---
Brown, L., Cohen, B., Costello, R., Brazhnik, O., and Galis, Z.S. (2023). Next steps: Operationalizing resilience research. Stress and Health.https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.3256
This publication advanced the NIH Resilience Framework from conceptualization into operational practice, naming the specific research directions and institutional mechanisms required to translate resilience science into applied investigation across fields.
---
Crawford, C., Brown, L.L., Costello, R.B., Deuster, P.A. (2023). Immune Supplements Under the Magnifying Glass: An Expert Panel Develops Priorities and Evidence-Based Recommendations for Future Research Regarding Dietary Supplements. J Integr Complement Med.doi: 10.1089/jicm.2022.0800
Produced through a resilience framework lens, this publication applied resilience science principles to immune function research, identifying evidence-based priorities for dietary supplement investigation that center the body's capacity for resilience rather than deficit-based models of immune vulnerability.
---
Crawford, C., Brown, L.L., Costello, R.B., Deuster, P.A. (2022). Select Dietary Supplement Ingredients for Preserving and Protecting the Immune System in Healthy Individuals: A Systematic Review. Nutrients, 14(21), 4604.https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14214604
This systematic review applied a strengths-based resilience lens to immune system science, examining how specific dietary supplement ingredients support the preservation and protection of immune function in healthy individuals, centering capacity and resilience rather than disease and deficit.
---
Crawford, C., Boyd, C., Brown, L., Costello, R., et al. (2021). Prioritized research recommendations and potential solutions: addressing gaps surrounding dietary supplement ingredients for boosting brain health and optimizing cognitive performance. Nutrition Research, 96, 9-19.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nutres.2021.10.001
This publication extended resilience science into cognitive performance research, centering brain health optimization and capacity rather than cognitive deficit, and advancing the strengths-based investigative lens that runs through the full body of work in this cluster.
Nutrition and Population-Specific Health Science
The publications in this cluster span nutrition science, women's health, and federal research policy. What connects them is not subject matter but investigative orientation. Each publication examines a population that has been excluded from equitable health science, applies a systems-based or evidence-based lens to that exclusion, and produces knowledge that centers what those populations need to sustain their strengths and resiliences rather than only correcting for their risks and deficits. That investigative orientation is the scientific thread that runs from this body of work into the framework THRIVE operationalizes at the organizational level.
Brown, L.L., Cohen, B.E., Edwards, E., Gustin, C.E., Noreen, Z. (2021). Physiological Need for Calcium, Iron, and Folic Acid for Women of Various Subpopulations During Pregnancy and Beyond. J Womens Health (Larchmt), 30(2), 207-211.https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2020.8873
This publication examined the differential physiological needs of women across subpopulations during pregnancy and beyond, centering population specificity and establishing that equitable health science requires investigating need at the level of the communities science has historically overlooked.
---
Brown, L.L., Cohen, B., Tabor, D., Zappala, G., Maruvada, P., Coates, P.M. (2018). The vitamin D paradox in Black Americans: a systems-based approach to investigating clinical practice, research, and public health, expert panel meeting report. BMC Proceedings, 12(Suppl 6):6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12919-018-0102-4
With more than 60 citations and 11,000 accesses, this publication applied a systems-based investigative approach to the Vitamin D paradox in Black Americans, naming the gap between clinical practice, research, and public health outcomes and establishing that closing that gap requires examining the structural conditions that produced it.
---
Brown, L.V.L., Coates, P.M. (2019). Addressing Key Knowledge Gaps in Nutrition Research and the Impact of Funding Priorities in Human Nutrition. In: Vitamin E in Human Health. Humana Press, Cham.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05315-4_31
This book chapter examined the relationship between federal funding priorities and knowledge gaps in nutrition research, establishing that what science does not know cannot properly inform institutional decisions about what is resourced and funded for future science investigations.
Dr. Brown's full publication record and curriculum vitae are available upon request.