FOCUS
Motunrayo’s research interests lie at the intersection of health equity and community-driven policies. In her work, she explores the ways legislative and institutional policies intentionally or inadvertently create barriers to care for vulnerable populations, and the ways these barriers subsequently exacerbate health disparities. Her policy evaluation focus aims to highlight policies and practices that may have a negative, disparate impact on low-income, Black and Indigenous, and LGBTQIA populations. Finally, Motunrayo’s work prioritizes collaboration among community, research, and government sectors to design evidence-based community-driven solutions to these disparities, ensuring that policies are intentionally crafted with the communities they serve in mind.
MORE ABOUT MOTUNRAYO
Before joining the Harvard community, Motunrayo served at the California State Legislature as a legislative aide, where she helped draft legislative language and analyzed bills. She aims to foster public-private-community collaborations that bring evidence-based research to policymaking and community-focused perspectives to research work.
DISSERTATION GRANT AWARDEE — FALL 2024
“Place, Race, Racism, and Place-based Policies: Essays on Structural Racism and Community-Level Health Inequities”.
Motunrayo’s dissertation explores the relationship between structural racism and population-level health inequities. By examining the historical US policy of redlining, the first two papers explore the association between historical state-sanctioned racial residential segregation and present day maternal and infant health outcomes in New Jersey and in Massachusetts. Through a qualitative case study of a grassroots community health group in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, Motunrayo’s third dissertation paper investigates the ways discriminatory institutional and systemic policies weaken and even erode community resources, including social capital, and how these disinvested and neglected communities, such as Boston’s Hyde Park neighborhood, identify and prioritize community health needs, using collective power to generate solutions specific to the community.
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