Ha. Thanks, I guess. I've done a lot of stuff, but I don't list most of it on apps because I haven't done it in a while, or it's not something I think everyone would find acceptable, lol.
You should list what you have talked about here.
It will make you an interesting applicant.
What's that involve (feel free to slap me if that's a dumb question--long day at work)? My non-medical research has been about copyright law. Fascinating, I know. 😴
Policy research, as a term, can be incredibly broad and applied to essentially any policy issue that you can imagine -- from healthcare to texting while driving to taxing the wealthy. It includes both primary (collecting the data yourself, usually through survey) and secondary research (analyzing existing data), as well.
As my career goal is to be an MD/PhD in Health Policy focusing on mental health, I will create an example surrounding that:
Say you wanted to see how well the mental health care needs of the mentally ill in a particular state are being met -- in particular, the needs of the uninsured. You would conduct a study to see how many uninsured residents are experiencing mental health issues and, out of those, see who is not getting treatment or not getting adequate treatment. There is a good chance you will find the majority are not having their need adequately met.
Then, say, as a result of your research and the advocates who took it to the state government, a miracle happens and a new law is passed that says X amount of money will go towards funding outreach and treatment programs for those who are uninsured and mentally ill. After the law and some time have passed, you may go back and redo your earlier study. Most likely, you will still find that their needs are not adequately met.
After these studies are published, someone may publish an analysis of the effectiveness of the new law -- or, rather, its lack of effectiveness (secondary research).
That's the basic idea of it anyway. As I said, it is sort of broad and can cover a wide range of topics. I'd give you the specifics of what I have been involved in; but I'm too paranoid about anonymity. You can PM me if you like.
Oh, and I don't find Copyright Law boring at all.
