Published 2/25/2025 | Written by Audrey Baker

This fall, Cornell Public Health Assistant Professor, Dr. Charley Willison received the first-ever Emerging Health Politics Scholar Award from the Health Politics and Policy Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The award was developed specifically to recognize junior scholars, emerging as leaders in the field of health politics and policy based on excellence in their research, teaching, and service. “It can be risky to study something new when trying to kick off a career,” notes Dr. Willison, so recognition and support for research on new or underrepresented issues can serve an important role in driving research forward.

Dr. Willison’s research focuses on U.S. political and governmental decision-making related to at-risk and marginalized populations. As one of only a few political scientists who research homelessness, Dr. Willison engages with policymakers to investigate traditional punitive regimes, as well as evidence-based incentives, and policies engaged with health systems. Punitive policies like incarceration or forced displacement “actually facilitate cycles of homelessness, but have been established for nearly two centuries,” she says.

In response to rising rates of homelessness and ineffective policies, healthcare institutions are beginning to play a larger role in homelessness response, giving them the potential to reshape homeless policy. In a new paper, Dr. Willison examines the extent to which Medicaid and health systems across the country have established responses to homelessness, and factors associated with the decision to do so. This research is the first paper to measure the involvement of health systems in policy responses to homelessness, nationally.

Her work is increasingly crucial as unhoused populations grapple with threats related to climate, such as the impacts of extreme temperature. Three recent MPH graduates who worked with Dr. Willison are now supporting this research, exploring how city and state homelessness policies respond to the threats of adverse weather events.

Moving forward, Dr. Willison will continue to examine factors associated with local governments’ investments in policies that mitigate, rather than punish homelessness. “This award is important because it draws attention to new scholarship about the relationships between policy decision-making and health at a time when there are so many concurrent public health crises,” says Dr. Willison.