Matthew Motta
Profiles

Matthew Phillip Motta, PhD

Assistant Professor, Health Law, Policy & Management - Boston University School of Public Health

mmotta@bu.edu
Talbot (T Bldg)
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Biography

Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Health Law, Policy, & Management at Boston University's School of Public Health.

Previously, I was Assistant Professor of Political Science (American Politics, Research Methods) at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK. Before that, I was a Science of Science Communication postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (University of Pennsylvania). I was also based at the Yale Law School, where I was an affiliated postdoctoral scholar at the Cultural Cognition Project. I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota, where I was also a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow and Doctoral Dissertation Fellow.

My research focuses on a wide range of topics related to American politics, public opinion, science communication, and both health and environmental policy. I am especially interested in identifying the social and political determinants of anti-science attitudes, and investigating their health policy impact. I am also broadly interested in designing communication strategies that promote effective engagement between the public and the scientific community on politically contentious issues. My forthcoming book Anti-Scientific Americans (Oxford University Press, 2024) explores the prevalence, origins, and consequences of anti-intellectualism in the United States, and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

My research has been published in academic journals across the social and medical sciences (e.g., American Journal of Public Health, Social Science & Medicine, Vaccine, Nature Climate Change, Scientific Reports), and featured in popular press outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, PBS Newshour, and the CBS Evening News.

As part of my research activities, I also conduct public health opinion research as a Research Fellow at the Policy Lab at Brown University, and piloting health communication campaign strategies as Affiliated Faculty with Harvard's TH Chan School of Public Health.

I am a political analyst for Spectrum News, and regularly comment on both my research and current events for print and television outlets. I am available for commentary on both local and national politics (including, but not limited to, discussions health politics and policy).

Education

  • University of Minnesota, PhD Field of Study: Political Science
  • Wesleyan University, BA Field of Study: Government

Websites

Classes Taught

  • SPHPH843
  • SPHPM760
  • SPHPM844

Publications

  • Published on 8/22/2024

    Motta M, Haglin K. Exogenous Increases in Basic Income Provisions Increase Preventive Health-Seeking Behavior: A Quasi-Experimental Study. Am J Prev Med. 2024 Aug 22. PMID: 39179181.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 6/1/2024

    Callaghan T, Ferdinand AO, Motta M, Lockman A, Shrestha A, Trujillo KL. Public Attitudes, Inequities, and Polarization in the Launch of the 988 Lifeline. J Health Polit Policy Law. 2024 Jun 01; 49(3):473-493. PMID: 37987198.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 5/16/2024

    Pacheco J, Gollust SE, Callaghan T, Motta M. A Call for Measuring Partisanship in US Public Health Research. Am J Public Health. 2024 Aug; 114(8):772-776. PMID: 38754062.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/13/2024

    Heinrich T, Kobayashi Y, Motta M. Which foreign vaccine should the government purchase in a pandemic? Evidence from a survey experiment in the United States. Soc Sci Med. 2024 Apr; 347:116766. PMID: 38502981.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 3/11/2024

    Motta M, Liu Y, Yarnell A. "Influencing the influencers:" a field experimental approach to promoting effective mental health communication on TikTok. Sci Rep. 2024 Mar 11; 14(1):5864. PMID: 38467750.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 12/1/2023

    Motta M, Callaghan T, Lunz Trujillo K. "The CDC Won't Let Me Be": The Opinion Dynamics of Support for CDC Regulatory Authority. J Health Polit Policy Law. 2023 Dec 01; 48(6):829-857. PMID: 37497881.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 9/6/2023

    Motta M, Hwang J, Stecula D. What Goes Down Must Come Up? Pandemic- Related Misinformation Search Behavior During an Unplanned Facebook Outage. Health Commun. 2024 Sep; 39(10):2041-2052. PMID: 37674255.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 8/26/2023

    Motta M, Motta G, Stecula D. Sick as a dog? The prevalence, politicization, and health policy consequences of canine vaccine hesitancy (CVH). Vaccine. 2023 Sep 22; 41(41):5946-5950. PMID: 37640567.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 6/1/2023

    Goidel K, Callaghan T, Washburn DJ, Nuzhath T, Scobee J, Spiegelman A, Motta M. Physician Trust in the News Media and Attitudes toward COVID-19. J Health Polit Policy Law. 2023 Jun 01; 48(3):317-350. PMID: 36441631.

     Read At: PubMed
  • Published on 5/19/2023

    Motta M, Benegal S. How pandemic-related changes in global attitudes toward the scientific community shape "post-pandemic" environmental opinion. Public Underst Sci. 2023 Oct; 32(7):907-925. PMID: 37204071.

     Read At: PubMed

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News & In the Media

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