In pursuit of healthy public policies

Firefighters and Emergency Medical Services workers frequently serve as frontline health care practitioners in rural communities where a lack of transportation and lengthy travel distances often limit residents’ access to doctors and hospitals. Senior Amal Ali found this to be true in Goochland, a Virginia county about 30 miles northwest of Richmond.

Ali, a leadership studies and political science major and health studies minor, was among 5% of applicants accepted last summer into the Virginia Department of Health Internship Academy. There, she completed her credit-bearing Jepson School of Leadership Studies internship as a public health intern working on a community health assessment of Goochland.

In creating the assessment, the Richmond native collected information from focus groups and community conversations and analyzed qualitative data on health indicators and social determinants of health. She also interviewed firefighters and EMS workers.

“They gave me a lot of information, because they travel all over the county, often acting as health care providers,” Ali said. “During the height of the COVID pandemic, a lot of effort went into getting resources out to the community using mobile teams. But that effort has waned due to a lack of resources. Now many elderly people struggle to get to doctors’ offices.”

During her internship, she also made a presentation on the impact of redlining on health outcomes in central Virginia. Redlining, a U.S. government practice characterized by racial discrimination in housing, was prevalent from the 1930s to the mid-1970s. The resulting disinvestment in minority neighborhoods still resonates today in Goochland’s health outcomes, she said.

“I created my presentation using what I learned in my Race and Law first-year seminar,” the senior said. “It was great to apply classroom learning in a professional setting. My Department of Health internship was a dream come true.”

A credit-bearing political science internship in the Virginia General Assembly in spring 2024 also focused on health care, Ali said. She served as a policy intern in the office of Virginia Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, chair of the Education and Health Committee.

“It was on-the-go learning,” the Presidential Scholar said. “I wrote press releases, researched and tracked bills, and tracked budget amendments. I wrote my political science paper on why a bill sponsored by Sen. Hashmi to extend health care to roughly 13,000 uninsured kids, including many undocumented immigrants, died in the House Appropriations Committee. I really care about this issue. Investing in the developmental health of children sets up the trajectory for their adolescence.”

Ali said she chose University of Richmond for its strong leadership studies and political science programs and has not been disappointed. “My interest in health policy developed when I took Health Policy 101 with Dr. Mayes my sophomore year,” she said. “In Dr. Price’s Critical Thinking class, I learned not what to think, but how to think.” This year, she has had the opportunity to practice leadership as president of the Westhampton College Government Association.

Currently, Ali is researching Americans’ reactions to U.S. policy toward Israel for her Jepson senior honors thesis. Dr. Crystal Hoyt is her faculty advisor. She said she will survey Americans of various political and religious backgrounds to learn how and why they respond to U.S. support of Israel. “If Americans are struggling with the rising cost of living, why are we so willing to support sending billions of dollars to Israel?” she asked. “What is the economic justification?”

This research is but one more way for Ali to explore public policy. But ultimately, she is most interested in focusing on health care legislation. “My goal is to go into health policy,” she said.