Member of the Month: Bruce Link

Bruce Link, MS, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Sociology
University of California Riverside

What brought you to IAPHS?

I am drawn to IAPHS because of its focused breadth. Its focus on population health defines exactly where I want to locate my attention. The breadth of disciplinary perspectives it attracts is both exciting and necessary for achieving the goal of improving health and addressing health equity. And then, in the mix of all this, perhaps the most important draw is the chance interact with so many talented and committed scholars.

What discipline(s) does your research fall under?

Sociology, Social Epidemiology , and Public Policy.

What other disciplines pique your interest? Are there additional disciplines you are interested in incorporating in your own research?

I am a wanna-be social psychologist (with those clever experiments), a wish-I-was demographer, (so I could actually understand population flows and APC effects), and a darn-it-if-I-only-could-be clinician (so I could actually directly help someone). But to be honest I haven’t met a social science I don’t like.

What are you planning to do in the future? Goals for the next five years?

Keep working with my great colleagues on population health projects! Write a book that tries to put together concepts, theories and approaches that have engaged me since I first skipped stairs in Butler Library at Columbia years ago. See if I can leverage any musty clout I may still have to get Peter Bearman to return to an IAPHS conference. Go crabbing with Ryan Masters. Play one game of pickleball and then stop forever.

What’s something that recently made you smile?

One of my undergraduate students who was sure it could not happen got into USC social work school. I had told her just to try — and it worked. Her big smile was infectious — made me smile.

What book or movie have you recently read or seen, and why would you recommend it?

I liked Adolescence. Seemed so real, and I identified with that “gulp” we all experience as the people we love encounter the world. We so much hope it turns out okay, but our control is at least somewhat limited. Something like that. Hang in there!

Do you have pets?

A cat. Ocie. Looks like an ocelot. I admire him because no one tells him what to do and he shows outstanding judgment in preferring my wife Jo Phelan to me.

What fictional place would you like to visit?

Geez, these questions are getting hard. The field in Field of Dreams with the talent to actually be a major league shortstop. Why not?

What is your favorite thing about IAPHS?

I sort of answered that question above. It boils down to the content and the people. And the size is perfect!

Will you be at the conference this year?

Yes! 

What do you do for fun?

If there is a guppy in a bathtub, I am there. I love fishing. I like fly fishing for trout the best. It is almost always beautiful where they hang out, and they fool me more often than I fool them.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever heard?

My mentor Bruce Dohrenwend passed away recently. I think we should make a book of his good advice!

In a situation involving alternative predictions, make sure you think deeply from the point of view you like less — it will help you identify situations in which the alternatives predict different facts, and if you can do that you have a good research problem.

Pick a research problem that matters — don’t find yourself polishing pebbles.

For a class of nasty things that other people might do to you, have a cognitive folder called “information” that you file it in. You can use what you gather to protect yourself going forward.

Don’t fish for guppies in bathtubs even though I might — there are better options!

If the readers want to reach you, what’s the best way to contact you?

Email: brucel@ucr.edu.