Patricia Strach is Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at Harvard University and an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Political Science and Public Administration and Policy at the University at Albany (on leave 2008-2010). Her research examines the relationship between social and political institutions in American public policy. Currently she is working on a project on the marketing of social problems that examines (1) when and why advocacy groups that wish to solve social problems turn to the government (hence making public policy) and when and why they take alternative strategies (fundraising, marketing); and (2) how these extra-governmental marketing campaigns affect citizens' views about government policy. Her book, All in the Family: The Private Roots of American Public Policy (Stanford, 2007) maps the role of family in the policy process and the consequences for policy when social practices change over time.
