Dr. Baker and collaborators awarded grant to study stress and politics

Dr. Melissa Baker, assistant professor of political science, and her collaborators Jordan Mansell, Amanda Friesen, Kelly Anderson, and Allison Leanage at Western University and McMaster University have been awarded a $397,054 Insight Grant from the Social Studies and Humanities Research Council to study stress and politics. The six-year project focuses on the effects of political competition on personal and democratic health. They will use public health data, surveys, and lab experiments to understand the economic and personal costs of political stress to individuals and the health system, as well as test interventions to reduce and cope with stress to boost healthy political engagement and public health while reducing political polarization.

This work is part of Dr. Baker's broader research agenda on mental/cognitive health and political engagement. She focuses on how cognitive health is related to political engagement, such as how anxiety, stress, and stressors influence how people engage with politics, and whether interventions can improve mental health and healthy political participation.

This grant is part of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant program.