About Our Lab

Partisanship shapes every aspect of the public health world including the health information individuals consume, their health attitudes, and their health behaviors. In Washington, and state houses across the country, health policymaking is increasingly motivated more by partisan disagreement than the pursuit of sound health policy. Health outcomes are increasingly shaped by political forces.

The purpose of the Politics and Health Lab is to monitor and depolarize the growing politicization of public health. To do this, the lab uses cutting edge social science methods to understand the causes and consequences of the  politicization of public health, and to develop strategies for bolstering public support for evidence-based health policy. Our approach relies on continual surveillance of health attitudes and behaviors using public opinion polling. We also rely on legislative monitoring, assessing the extent to which states across the country are pursuing pro and anti-public health legislation. We use survey information to build research to understand how partisanship impacts public health, and ways to intervene. Through our efforts in monitoring and countering public health politicization, we aim to help improve adherence to evidence-based health policies, and – in so doing – improve population health.

Lab activities and research areas

Opinion Surveillance

Conducting public opinion polling on the extent to which Massachusetts residents and the American public support evidence-based health policies in a wide range of public health domains; including policies related to infectious disease, vaccine promotion, mental health, addiction, and negative health outcomes attributable to climate change.

Political and Social Determinants of Health

Identifying the social and political determinants of public support for evidence-based health policies at the individual-level (through public opinion research) and in the aggregate (through the analysis of secondary health attitudinal/behavior data), in both Massachusetts and the American public more generally.  

Health Communication

Applying insights from our study of health policy opinion to develop and test communication campaigns that promote public support for evidence-based health policy (via lab and field-based randomized controlled trials; RCTs).

Policy Surveillance

Using legal epidemiology to track the introduction, passage/enactment, and revision of policies at both the federal and state level that promote (or fail to promote) evidence-based public health objectives, and studying how changing social, political, and/or economic conditions influence public consideration of these policies.