Research

My research addresses two core dimensions of the politics of healthcare. First concerns the effect of political competition, institutions and ideas on healthcare policy making. Second dimension looks at attitudes toward healthcare, in particular how these attitudes are shaped by policy feedback effects and factors such as political ideology. More recently, I have been looking into the role of political communication to understand how governments frame unpopular health policy choices.

Current research projects:

PI on the project ‘Government Discourse in the Context of Austerity-Driven Health Policy Reforms in Portugal, Ireland and Greece’, funded by the European University Institute. (EUI), 2021-22.

Previous research projects:

Co-PI (with E. Immergut and D. Burlacu) on the project ‘Responding to COVID-19: Government Action, Government Rhetoric, and Public Trust‘, EUI COVID-19 Knowledge Hub, 2020.

Datasets:

Immergut, E. M., Burlacu, D., Roescu, A., Wegemann, M., Popic, T., Stolarov-Demuth, G. HEALTHDOX Health Politics in Europe Dataset.

This dataset covers healthcare reforms enacted in European countries between 1989 and 2019, including changes in healthcare financing and provision, especially establishing new healthcare programs, privatisation and public management reforms, as well as patient rights. This legislative dataset includes; date of law (or decree or legislative proposal or white paper, etc), number of law, name of law in country language, name of law in English, date of passage, date of entry into force, description of main provisions, link to web site if available.