Physician Trust in the News Media and Attitudes toward COVID-19

Kirby Goidel is a Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on political behavior, media & politics, and campaigns and elections. His most recent book, Democracy’s Meanings: How the Public Understands Democracy and Why It Matters, investigates how the public’s competing understandings of democracy shape contemporary political debates.

kgoidel@tamu.edu

Timothy Callaghan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Callaghan’s research focuses on how politics, policy, and place work together to influence health in America. He has conducted extensive research on how politics influences health access for vulnerable populations, individual health attitudes and behaviors, and rural health. Dr. Callaghan will also serve as Chair of the Health Politics and Policy Section of the American Political Science Association from 2022-2023.

David J. Washburn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. He serves as the co-Director of the Program for Global Health and the Associate Director of the USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness and the Office of Special Programs and Global Health. His doctoral and master’s degrees are from the Harvard School of Public Health and his research focuses on health access for the underserved. Prior to graduate school, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Honduras.

Tasmiah Nuzhath is currently pursuing DrPH in the field of Health Behavior from Texas A&M School of Public Health. Her research focuses have been on understanding vaccine hesitancy and identifying the associated impacts of vaccine hesitancy among the American public. She is also conducting research to reduce barriers to access COVID-19 vaccine among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Julia Scobee is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health at Boston University. Her previous research has been published in Vaccine and the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health.

Abigail Spiegelman is an emergency manager for the Vermont Department of Health. She has a master’s in emergency and disaster management from Georgetown University where she specialized in geographic impacting factors of the anti-vaccination movement. Her current work focuses on increasing community engagement for disaster preparedness, including global health emergencies.

Matt Motta is an assistant professor of Health Law, Policy, and Management at Boston University's School of Public Health. His research aims to better understand the socio-political causes and health policy consequences of health misinformation and anti-science attitudes more generally. He is also interested in using insights from this research to inform strategic health communication aimed at increasing support for evidence-based policy.