The Growing Link between Political Beliefs and Health Outcomes

• In Event: Political Determinants of Health

Abstract

Through crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of deaths of despair, life expectancies for some Americans are lower now than they have been in decades. We marshal several sources of survey, administrative, and medical data to describe how these rising deaths are related to individuals' politics. We show that before 2010, liberal and conservative Americans died at similar rates of similar ailments. Starting in the 2010s, though, conservative Americans began to display worse health and higher death rates than liberals. This trend intensified during, but well predates, the COVID-19 pandemic. We show this is due to growing differences between liberals and conservatives in individual health behaviors, demographic characteristics, and the public health-related features of their environments. Together, these findings suggest that conservative Americans are increasingly vulnerable to a number of health problems---and increasingly resistant to the medical advice that could mitigate them.

Authors

• Neil O'Brian, University of Oregon

• Elizabeth Mitchell Elder, Stanford University