In Policymaking, ‘It’s Critically Important That the Voices of the Experts are Heard’.
Executive MPH student Ashley Coulombe
In Policymaking, “It’s Critically Important that the Voices of the Experts are Heard’
As deputy state director for policy and operations for Senator Elizabeth Warren, executive MPH student Ashley Coulombe translates the needs of constituents to the senator’s national policy team.
Executive MPH (EMPH) student Ashley Coulombe says she fell in love with the world of health policy while working on Capitol Hill as a special assistant and legislative aide to US Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2013.
Coulombe joined Warren’s 2012 campaign for the US Senate seat representing Massachusetts, and she has remained on the senator’s team ever since. After serving as a legislative aide for three years, she became state policy director in 2016, and in 2019, Coulombe assumed her current role as deputy state director for policy and operations.
Now, she balances her time between attending SPH classes part-time in the online EMPH program, and keeping a pulse on the issues that matter to residents in the Commonwealth. Coulombe works closely with colleagues on Warren’s Massachusetts team to communicate constituents’ concerns to the national policy team in Washington, DC, and ensure that their voices are represented in the federal policymaking process.
“I also do a lot of learning and listening about the work that the Senator and our team do to enact policy in Washington, and help translate that here in Massachusetts,” says Coulombe. “Right now, a big part of my job is talking to state and local officials about the pandemic to make sure that they have all the tools that federal officials can provide to fight this crisis locally and nationally.”
Coulombe says that her first EMPH class, Quantitative Methods for Public Health made a noticeable difference in her work outside the classroom.
“I really enjoyed the course because it is so different than what I typically do in my day-to-day work,” says Coulombe. “But as I was reading studies and news articles about the pandemic, I began to understand concepts and data in a different way, and I could feel the impact of the program from that first course.”
Relationship-building and open dialogue between policymakers and public health practitioners can pave the way to communicating critical information about the pandemic, and rebuilding public trust around science and facts, she says.
“How can we continue to make sure that public health experts have a platform?” Coulombe says. “As we move into a period focusing on vaccines, it’s critically important that the voices of the experts are heard, and it’s the job of policymakers to help boost public confidence in that.”
In her policy roles throughout the years, Coulombe has researched issues on global health, reproductive health, and the opioid epidemic, and now she is also interested in learning about the social determinants of health to shape policies around stable, affordable housing and economic opportunities for families. “We also need to find ways to put public health experts at the same table as diverse communities to hear their stories, to not always look at data on a page,” she says.
Warren’s support for increased representation of women and other demographic groups in clinical trials is just one example of this necessary policy work, says Coulombe. “To be in a public health role talking about these issues now wasn’t my life plan 10 years ago, but it has given me an opportunity to meet more women in science and learn more about issues that have become important to me personally.”
Some of those women are her current EMPH classmates, who Coulombe calls “a fantastic group of people with really diverse backgrounds.
“I was worried that it would be challenging to get to know people in an online class, but it has been really great to have a group of people who are willing to just start a discussion, talk about issues, and ask really good questions that come from their own experience.”