State and Local Policymakers' Engagement with Neuroscience to Improve Health Policy in the United States
Abstract
Neuroscience is useful for making progress on public health challenges such as mental health, aging, violence, and addiction. State and local policymakers have substantial authority over these issues but do not always have access to the research and counsel they want. To inform initiatives that could bridge the gap, high-quality information on policymakers' existing and desired engagement is needed. We conducted four nationally representative surveys of local elected policymakers, local public sector staff, state legislators, and state public sector staff to gather this information. Across the four samples, 13.8–28.6% reported recently interacting with a neuroscientist, while 50.3–73.6% reported unmet desire to do so. Prior exposure to disseminated neuroscience information varied, from 19.1 to 68.0% across the samples. Unmet desire for neuroscience-related policy briefs (50.5–76.8%) and news articles (52.7–68.9%) were among the most common for all policymakers. Unmet desire crossed party lines, though with some partisan differences. These findings suggest several avenues to increase evidence-informed health policymaking.
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BibTeX
@article{levine2026state,
title = {{State and Local Policymakers' Engagement with Neuroscience to Improve Health Policy in the United States}},
author = {Adam Seth Levine and Debra J. H. Mathews and J. Lomax Boyd},
journal = {eneuro},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1523/eneuro.0282-26.2026},
url = {https://www.eneuro.org/lookup/doi/10.1523/ENEURO.0282-26.2026},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - State and Local Policymakers' Engagement with Neuroscience to Improve Health Policy in the United States
AU - Adam Seth Levine
AU - Debra J. H. Mathews
AU - J. Lomax Boyd
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - eneuro
DO - 10.1523/eneuro.0282-26.2026
UR - https://www.eneuro.org/lookup/doi/10.1523/ENEURO.0282-26.2026
AB - Neuroscience is useful for making progress on public health challenges such as mental health, aging, violence, and addiction. State and local policymakers have substantial authority over these issues but do not always have access to the research and counsel they want. To inform initiatives that could bridge the gap, high-quality information on policymakers' existing and desired engagement is needed. We conducted four nationally representative surveys of local elected policymakers, local public sector staff, state legislators, and state public sector staff to gather this information. Across the four samples, 13.8–28.6% reported recently interacting with a neuroscientist, while 50.3–73.6% reported unmet desire to do so. Prior exposure to disseminated neuroscience information varied, from 19.1 to 68.0% across the samples. Unmet desire for neuroscience-related policy briefs (50.5–76.8%) and news articles (52.7–68.9%) were among the most common for all policymakers. Unmet desire crossed party lines, though with some partisan differences. These findings suggest several avenues to increase evidence-informed health policymaking.
SN - 2373-2822
ER -