The intersections between politics and health have become blurred between fact and political opinion. A new research lab at Boston University’s School of Public Health is exploring the relationship between the two.
The Politics and Health Lab, led by co-directors Timothy Callaghan and Matt Motta, officially went live Jan. 27, but planning began spring 2023.
The interdisciplinary research lab studies political influence on public health and seeks to depolarize public policy decisions related to health.
Motta, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at SPH, said the lab focuses its research on why health is politicized and is searching for ways to combat it.
“We don’t want Democrats and Republicans to have different life expectancies,” Motta said. “We want to be able to bring people together.”
Callaghan, an assistant professor at HLPM at SPH, said the lab is currently working on several key initiatives using public opinion surveillance to understand health attitudes and behaviors in the United States.
“We want to work against misinformation, bring people together, cross ideological divides and find ways to make the public a healthier public,” Callaghan said.
The lab is also working to understand vaccine legislation at the state and federal levels, Motta said.
He said anti-vaccine legislation is being “overwhelmingly” introduced by Republicans in state houses across the country.
“We are, to my knowledge, the only apparatus that is making an effort to systematically track all of this legislative activity and share that information with the community,” he said.
This project, known as the State Vaccine Policy Project, is one of many active projects within the lab. Once completed, the data will contain a record of every vaccine-related legislature introduced in US statehouses from 1985 to 2023.
Elizabeth McCuskey, an affiliate faculty member at the lab, said the lab is uniquely positioned within the cross-disciplinary research conducted at BU.
“[The lab] has incredible power to be a place that policymakers can turn to to find informed research on the things that they might want to do for their constituents and to be able to advise and develop the kinds of research that responds to what community needs are,” she said.
Callaghan said the lab’s research is not a reaction to President Donald Trump’s re-election.
“Regardless of whether there is a Republican or a Democrat in the White House, this is important work for us to do,” he said.
Motta said the lab plans to continue its research throughout the Trump administration, and the mission of the lab will remain the same. However, he is unsure if interruptions to their work will present themselves in the future.
“Not only are we studying issues that are politically contentious, we’re studying politics itself,” he said. “We’re studying how politics influences our health, and these are words that have become taboo in the Trump administration.”
Callaghan said he and Motta are looking for ways to continue expanding the lab.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from students and faculty and alumni in the lab since it got announced a few weeks ago, and over the next several months, we’re planning to find ways to grow the lab,” said Callaghan.
Michael McClean, the associate dean for Research and Faculty Advancement at SPH, said the work of their research is rooted in determining what we can do to keep people healthy.
“The issues around public health are so complex. We need to bring in these different perspectives to make sure that we’re capturing all of the important elements,” he said. “Politics do play such an important role in health. It’s great to have that perspective represented right in the school.”
