The American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) has honored Dr. Mollyann Brodie with the AAPOR Award for Distinguished Achievement, recognizing more than three decades of leadership and innovation in the field of public opinion research. The award, presented during the association’s 81st annual conference in Los Angeles, celebrates Dr. Brodie’s role in transforming how the United States tracks and understands public sentiment regarding health and healthcare.
As an executive vice president and executive director of Public Opinion and Survey Research at KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation), Dr. Brodie has overseen the development of data sets that have become essential tools for government officials, health providers, and journalists. Her work is credited with moving public opinion research beyond simple percentages to provide a nuanced narrative of how systemic policy changes affect the daily lives of ordinary Americans.
For those of us in the medical community, the value of Dr. Brodie’s work is evident in the clinic. When we discuss vaccine hesitancy or insurance barriers with patients, we aren’t just guessing at the trends; we are relying on the rigorous, probability-based data that Dr. Brodie’s team produces. By bridging the gap between raw data and human experience, her research provides a roadmap for public health interventions that are grounded in the actual concerns of the population.
Defining the National Conversation on Health Policy
A central pillar of Dr. Brodie’s contribution is the development of the KFF Health Tracking Poll. This longitudinal effort has been instrumental in documenting the public’s evolving relationship with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), tracking how the legislation shifted the landscape of health coverage and accessibility over the last decade.
The association specifically highlighted her vision in creating the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor. During a period of unprecedented global uncertainty, this resource became a critical benchmark for understanding the uptake, access, and specific concerns surrounding emerging vaccines. According to the AAPOR award citation, Dr. Brodie’s approach produced research that “went beyond poll numbers to tell the broader story of how Americans experienced major changes in health and health care.”
This ability to capture the “story” within the statistics is what distinguishes the Mollyann Brodie AAPOR Award for Distinguished Achievement. Rather than treating public opinion as a static snapshot, Dr. Brodie’s work treats it as a living record of the American experience with the healthcare system.
Amplifying Underrepresented Voices in Data
Beyond the broad national trends, Dr. Brodie has spent much of her career challenging the limitations of traditional polling. Historically, nationally representative polls have often failed to capture the perspectives of marginalized groups, leading to “data deserts” that can result in blind spots for policymakers.
AAPOR praised Dr. Brodie’s commitment to inclusion, noting her development of methodologically innovative surveys targeting populations that are frequently overlooked. These include:
- Working-class Americans and rural communities.
- Transgender adults.
- Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina.
This commitment to inclusivity was further recognized with the 2026 AAPOR Inclusive Voices Award, granted to KFF’s Surveys of Immigrants. This multi-year initiative—conducted in collaboration with The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times—stands as the only large-scale, nationally representative probability-based survey of immigrants in the U.S. In recent decades.
The project utilized multi-frame, multilingual, and multi-mode methods to reach individuals who are typically excluded from research, including undocumented immigrants and those with limited English proficiency. By ensuring these voices are counted, the research provides a more accurate picture of the challenges facing millions of residents who navigate the U.S. Health system from the margins.
A Collaborative Approach to Public Health Intelligence
The success of KFF’s polling arm is the result of a highly integrated operational structure. Dr. Brodie leads the survey research team alongside Senior Vice President Liz Hamel and Director of Survey Methodology Dr. Ashley Kirzinger. This technical expertise is then synthesized with policy research led by Executive Vice President Larry Levitt and the reporting of KFF Health News.
This synergy allows KFF to not only identify a trend in the data but to explain the policy mechanism driving that trend and report its real-world impact in real-time. Dr. Brodie also expanded the reach of this data by forging strategic polling partnerships with major news organizations, including The Washington Post.
Dr. Drew Altman, Founding President and CEO of KFF, noted the transformative impact of Dr. Brodie’s arrival at the organization. “We started our polling program when we started KFF in the early 1990s, but it made the jump to light speed after Molly arrived,” Dr. Altman said. He added that the awards recognize her expertise and the effectiveness of coordinating polling with policy research and journalism.
As the healthcare landscape continues to shift toward personalized medicine and value-based care, the need for precise, inclusive public opinion data remains paramount. The next phase of KFF’s research will likely continue to focus on the intersections of equity, access, and the evolving public trust in medical institutions.
We invite you to share your thoughts on the importance of inclusive data in healthcare in the comments below.
