With Michael Shepherd, Assistant Professor of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan
March 20, 4-5:30 p.m.
820 Social Sciences Building, UC Berkeley
Since the 1980s, rural and urban Americans have diverged on a variety of important health indicators. Today, rural Americans live four years shorter than their urban counterparts. These differences are larger than in any other wealthy democracy.
In his book manuscript, political scientist Michael Shepherd shows how partisan politics at elite and mass levels explain the growing rural-urban health divide in the US. Namely, Republican policies at the federal and state level uniquely undermine rural health. At the same time, Republican appeals to race and rural culture have allowed them to bring even the sick and poor in rural communities into the Republican fold, blunting accountability for their policies. These patterns have created the rural health spiral, where the worse outcomes get in rural America, the more voters turn away from government and to Republicans, which in turn further worsens rural health.
On March 20, BESI welcomes Shepherd for a talk on this foundational obstacle to effective health policy. An open Q&A with Shepherd will follow, so bring your questions.
About the Speaker
Michael Shepherd is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy and the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan.
Prior to Michigan, Shepherd was an assistant Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas, Austin.Michael’s research has appeared or is forthcoming in American Political Science Review, Election Law Journal, the Journal of Public Policy, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Communication, Political Science Research & Methods, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Michael received his Ph.D. in political science from Vanderbilt University. His dissertation book project, Unhealthy Democracy: How Partisan Politics is Killing Rural America, won the Best Dissertation award from the APSA Class & Inequality Section.