Holly Jarman, PhD
Associate Professor of health management & Policy, University of Michigan
Health researchers often talk about the social determinants of health. My role is to learn about and help others to understand the political determinants of health -the impact of politics, governance and policymaking on health outcomes.
As a faculty member at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, I teach students from a wide range of professional and personal backgrounds about political systems and their relationships to personal and community health, health equity, and access to social justice.
My research comes from seeking to understand the same questions, whether I am researching the impact of market rules and trade regulations on health or trying to understand why states choose the tobacco control policies that they do. You can find some examples of my work below.
More bios and photos.
Download my full cv.
View my work with colleagues at the HMP Governance Lab and the Center for the Assessment of Tobacco Regulations.
Selected Publications
Vaccination Politics
University of Michigan Press, 2027
COVID-19 vaccines were a historic triumph, with less than a year between the initial identification of the microbe and effective vaccines being administered. They were also a public administration challenge, demanding that governments of the world procure and administer billions of doses in widely different contexts. In many countries they were intensely polarizing, catalyzing a rise in anti-vaccination politics.
Vaccination Politics brings together public health and political science expertise for a global, systematic comparison of vaccination politics. The authors look at 32 countries’ experiences—from Austria to Malawi and the United States to Hong Kong—to understand how trust, wealth, pharmaceutical industries, regulators, international organizations, and health systems succeeded or failed at acquiring vaccines and vaccinating citizens. It shows how different governments and populations navigated challenges. Global inequality, political trust, contestation over health system priorities, and opportunistic politicians all played roles in shaping the subsequent politics of health and vaccination around the world. A conclusion brings together lessons for policy and key issues for further research. While the next pandemic is unknown to us today, the response to it will be shaped by the positive and negative legacies of COVID-19 vaccination politics.
Holly Jarman, Rachel Kulikoff, Miranda Yaver, and Scott L. Greer. 2026. Health policy effects of budgetary actions under the second Trump administration. The Lancet Regional Health Americas.
Claire L. Ma, Praneetha Vissapragada, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Holly Jarman. 2026. The political economy of flavored tobacco: comparative policy mapping of flavor restrictions for cigarettes and e-cigarettes. Globalization and Health.
Claire L. Ma, Claire L., Praneetha Vissapragada, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Holly Jarman. 2026. Policy actors as data integrators: mixing data in tobacco control evaluation and assessment. Health Economics, Policy and Law.
Holly Jarman, Andrew S. Kelly, Herschel Nachlis, and Charley E. Willison. 2026. Health Politics and Democracy. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.
Holly Jarman and Miranda Yaver. 2026. The Tariff Trap: Why funding health programs through tariffs harms both health and democracy. World Medical and Health Policy.
Holly Jarman, Phillip M. Singer, Iris A. Holmes, Jessica Hsu, Chloe Harper, Naquia Unwala, and Charley E. Willison. 2026. Draining the Swamp: the local governance of mosquito borne diseases in Florida. Urban Affairs Review.
Elize Massard da Fonseca, H.S. Nachlis, K. Thomson, H. Jarman. 2024. Borrowing Regulatory Capacity in Middle Income Countries During Public Health Crises: Brazil, Regulatory Reliance, and the Politics of COVID-19 Vaccine Regulation. Social Science and Medicine.
Holly Jarman, Scott Greer and Martin McKee. 2020. ‘Brexit is just a symptom. The constitutional weaknesses it reveals have significant consequences for health’, Journal of Public Health.
Scott Greer, Holly Jarman and Peter Donnelly. 2019. ‘Lessons for the United States from “single-payer” systems’ American Journal of Public Health, 109(11): 1493-6.
Holly Jarman, 2019. ‘Normalizing Tobacco? The Politics of Trade, Investment and Tobacco Control’ Milbank Quarterly, 97(2): 449-79.
Holly Jarman, David Mendez, Rafael Meza, Alex Liber, Karalyn Kiessling, Charley Willison, Sarah Wang, Megan Roberts, Elizabeth Klein, Tammy Chang, Leia Gu, and Cliff Douglas. 2019. Tobacco 21 in Michigan: New evidence and policy considerations. Ann Arbor: Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation.
Fahy, Nick, Tamara Hervey, Scott Greer, Holly Jarman, David Stuckler, Mike Galsworthy, Martin McKee. 2019. ‘How will Brexit affect health services in the UK? An updated evaluation’ The Lancet, 393(10174): 949-958.
Jarman, Holly. 2018. ‘Legalism and Tobacco Control in the EU’, European Journal of Public Health, 28(supp.3): 26-29.
Holly Jarman, Martin McKee and Tamara K. Hervey. 2018. Trump’s populism, transatlantic trade and health: what ‘American Patients First’ has to do with Brexit and the NHS. The Lancet, 392(10145): 447-450.
Scott L. Greer and Holly Jarman. 2018. European Citizenship Rights and European Politics After the Crisis. Government and Opposition, 53(1): 76-103.
Holly Jarman. 2017. Trade Policy Governance: What Health Policymakers and Advocates Need to Know. Health Policy, 121(11): 1105–1112.
Nick Fahy, Tamara Hervey, Scott Greer, Holly Jarman, David Stuckler, Mike Galsworthy and Martin McKee. 2017. ‘How will Brexit affect health and health services in the UK? Evaluating three possible scenarios against the WHO health system building blocks’, The Lancet, 390(10107): 2110–2118. I discuss the implications of Brexit for the pharmaceutical industry in BBC Radio 4's 'Brexit: A Guide for the Perplexed'.
Holly Jarman and Meri Koivusalo. 2017. ‘Trade and Health in the European Union’, in Tamara Hervey, (eds.) Research Handbook on European Union Health Law and Policy, Edward Elgar.
Scott L. Greer, Holly Jarman and Rita Baeten. 2016. The New Political Economy of Healthcare in the European Union: The Impact of Fiscal Governance. International Journal of Health Services, 46(2) 262-282.
Holly Jarman. 2015. The Politics of Trade and Tobacco Control. Palgrave Macmillan.
Holly Jarman. 2014. Healthcare, Borders, and Boundaries: Crossborder Health Markets and the Entrepreneurial State, Policy and Society, 33(1): 1-11.
Holly Jarman. 2013. Attack on Australia: Tobacco Industry Challenges to Plain Packaging, Journal of Public Health Policy, 34(3): 375-387.
Jarman, Holly, Judith Schmidt, and Daniel Rubin. 2012. When Trade Law Meets Public Health Evidence: The WTO and Clove Cigarettes. BMJ Tobacco Control, 21: 596-598.
What I Teach
Introduction to Public Health Policy
Health Management & Policy Residential Masters Program
An introduction to the public health system and the key policy issues confronting public health practitioners. Students learn about the range of possible public health policy interventions, the ideological and evidentiary motivations for introducing them, and the impact of the political, bureaucratic and social environments in which policy decisions are made on health outcomes.
Methods of Inquiry in Health Research
Health SERVICES ORGANIzATION AND POLICY DOCTORAL PROGRAM
A course for doctoral students designing their dissertation research projects. We explore different methodological approaches to health research, discuss research ethics, and unpack the practicalities of the research process.
Tobacco Control Policy
Health Management & Policy Masters and undergraduate Programs
This course introduces students to how tobacco and nicotine policies in the United States and globally are formulated and implemented, exploring challenges by the global tobacco industry, the role of scientific evidence, and the politics of public health practice in tobacco control.
Policy Engagement
Center for the Assessment of Tobacco Control Regulations
Co-lead, policy and dissemination, 2024-present
Center for Engineering in Public Health, Army Corps of Engineers
Senior Social Scientist, 2021-2025
Awards
2026: Excellence in Mentoring Award, American Political Science Association, Health Politics and Policy Section.
2025: Army Superior Unit Award, US Army. Civil award, awarded for excellent conduct and exemplary government service during extraordinary periods in peacetime. Awarded in relation to global COVID-19 response analysis.
2023: Outstanding Public Engagement in Health Policy Award, American Political Science Association, Health Politics and Policy Section.
2020: Selected as one of 9 Public Engagement Faculty Fellows by the University of Michigan Office of Academic Innovation in a university-wide competition.
2019: Altmetric, Top 100 most-discussed articles of 2019, for ‘How will Brexit affect health services in the UK? An updated evaluation’, placed 41st out of 2.7 million research outputs.
2017: Leonard S. Robbins Award for best paper on health policy and politics presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting of 2016.
2017: Altmetric, Top 100 most-discussed articles of 2017, for ‘How will Brexit affect health and health services in the UK? Evaluating three possible scenarios’, placed 99th out of 2.2 million research outputs.
2014: John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators, Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA).