Professor Kenneth H. Brown devotes most of his career generating information and developing programs to improve nutritional and health status, especially in controlling and preventing zinc deficiency. He and his team conducted a series of community-based clinical trials of the effect of zinc supplementation on the child growth and development as well as risk of infection. The studies showed that additional zinc supplementation help decreasing the incidence and severity of diarrhea and pneumonia especially in children living in developing countries.

Children born to mothers who receive zinc supplementation during pregnancy have lower incidence of diarrhea. He and colleagues further examined and evaluated various zinc fortification and supplementation strategies. Professor Brown is instrumental in the International Zinc Nutrition Consultative Group that advocates zinc supplementation, which is now widely accepted as an important public health measure to prevent zinc deficiency as a major contributor for childhood morbidity and mortality.He won Prince Mahidol Award in 2010.