Conservative Health Activism and the Rise of “MAHA Moms

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 2. Political Ideologies, Political Contexts, and Health

Abstract

In 2025, President Donald J. Trump established the MAHA Commission and appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, framing the initiative as a response to a national chronic disease crisis. While critics often portray supporters as anti-science, this study examines how mothers come to align with MAHA and what their engagement reveals about expertise and trust. The analysis draws on 48 semi-structured interviews with U.S.-based mothers and integrates social movement theory, science and technology studies, medical sociology, and gender theory. I conceptualize MAHA as a conservative health movement that appropriates the language of autonomy, transparency, and scientific rigor while embedding these claims in partisan identities and norms of intensive mothering. Findings show that alternative health practices typically precede explicit identification with MAHA. Skepticism often emerged during pregnancy, early pediatric care, or the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants consulted both conventional medical authorities and alternative information networks, elevating experiential knowledge, often framed as maternal intuition, as a legitimate epistemic resource. Their critique targets not science per se, but the institutional organization and moral authority of contemporary medicine. By situating MAHA moms within broader transformations in biomedical authority and gendered caregiving, this study contributes to debates about contested expertise and the politicization of health governance in the contemporary United States.

Author

• Haylie June, Northwestern University