public opinion

Originally published June 17, 2014

Many municipalities across the United States have taken measures to keep homeless people and panhandlers out of sight in public spaces. Legislators and government officials justify such steps as necessary to protect the public against unsafe or provocative conduct by “street people.” But some previous studies suggest that many Americans who have frequent interactions with street beggars see them in more benign and nuanced ways. To learn more, I did interviews and collected questionnaire responses from passers-by who recounted their reactions to recent interactions with beggars. My methods allowed me to tap the meanings these interactions hold for people who pass beggars on the street – meanings not usually captured in quantitative studies. more...

Originally published March 17, 2015

Media stories about measles outbreaks in California and Arizona have featured prominent politicians weighing in with conflicting messages. Should vaccination be required for all children with few exceptions? Are vaccines safe? Should parents have a choice – when refusing vaccines can put their own and other people’s children at grave risk? The stories are dramatic, but scholars and public officials warn that it is dangerous to turn vaccination into a political football. Other widely publicized controversies reveal that the insertion of politics into media coverage can be hard to reverse, as it may undermine public trust in doctors and public health officials.

Political Controversy Sticks

Our research examines two recent politically charged health controversies – the 2009 dust-up over mammography screening guidelines and the 2006-2007 debate over whether middle schools should require girls to get vaccinated against infections by the human papillomavirus (“HPV” for short). Specifically, we found that local and national media coverage did not start with a focus on political controversy. But once news stories started to highlight partisan arguments among political leaders, political controversies became the focus of subsequent coverage. more...

Responding to the climate threat will take an all-hands-on-deck approach that combines policies at the national level with coordinated actions by state and local governments. To support climate policymaking, climate scientists create detailed models of climate change risks at the local level. But fashioning publicly supported responses to climate threats is a major political challenge. As part of any effective response, state and local officials will need to interact with and represent the concerns of diverse constituencies. Policymaking will be shaped by public concerns about climate change, public understanding of the shifts in behavior necessary to manage the threat, and public support for different climate policy options.

To help understand citizen attitudes, we created the “Yale Climate Opinion Maps” – an interactive online tool supported by a peer-reviewed scientific article published in Nature Climate Change. Our online tool provides estimates of what Americans believe about climate change, their perceptions of climate risks and support for policy options, with breakdowns for all 50 states, 435 congressional districts, and 3,000+ counties in the United States.

Measuring Public Views

Recent years have brought a proliferation of polls that document national beliefs about climate change with a single number. For example, surveys indicate that 63% of Americans believe that global warming is happening. However, existing polls provide, at best, a limited view of the distribution and variation of opinions at the local scales relevant for many decision makers. Imagine we did a national survey of 2000 Americans that included 50 Americans from the state of Texas. Unfortunately, averaging the responses of these 50 Texans could not provide an accurate estimate of average climate beliefs in Texas – because the Texans who happened to be polled would usually not be a good representation of the range of views held by all Texans. Furthermore, for many smaller areas across the country, such as a rural county, there would not usually be a single respondent from that area in a national poll. more...

Location, location, location is the mantra we often hear about the value of real estate – and the same principle applies to the rights and protections enjoyed by gays, lesbians, and bisexuals across the United States. Those who live in New England, along the West coast and in the Great Lakes states can marry whom they wish and are legally protected against hate crimes and discrimination in public accommodations and employment. In the rest of the country, however, such legal rights and protections are rarely found. Drawing on my own research and that of other scholars, this brief explores why this variation exists. Regional imitation, the presence of gay and lesbian legislators, public opinion, and institutional rules all turn out to matter.

Neighboring States Acting Together

Regional differences in public policies supporting gays and lesbians suggest that the importance of what scholars call “policy diffusion,” where policies adopted in one state spread to its neighbors as their citizens and officials see positive effects and move to imitate. In New England, for example, the process started when Massachusetts legislated against employment discrimination in 1988 and recognized same-sex marriages in 2004, and Vermont became the first state to formally recognize same-sex relationships by instituting civil unions in 2000. Similarly, California and Minnesota were early adopters, setting the stage for diffusion along the West coast and among Great Lakes states. California legislated against employment discrimination in 1992 and against hate crimes in 1999, and Minnesota took action in 1993. more...