People in Republican Counties Have Higher Death Rates Than Those in Democratic Counties

The link between politics and health became clear during the COVID-19 epidemic. Blue states were more likely to impose mask requirements. Republican-leaning states were less willing to accept health measures. The consequences of the differences emerged at the end of 2020 when the rates of hospitalization and death from COVID went up in conservative counties. Vaccines became widely available in 2021. Although the Omicron variant narrowed the gap in infections, hospitalization and death rates, they are still higher in Republican-leaning areas.

The story of politics and health isn't finished. The risk of death in the US was different based on where you lived, according to a physician and researcher.

There was a growing gap in mortality rates between residents of Republican and Democratic counties over the course of two decades prior to the swine flu epidemic. The U.S. mortality rate has gone down since then, but not as much as in other high-income countries. The improvement for those living in Republican counties was less than the improvement for Democrats.

A sociologist and demographer at Syracuse University, who was not involved in the research, says the longitudinal approach replicates and extends a clear pattern. Montez says that it joins an existing literature showing that politics have life and death consequences.

The new study, conducted by researchers in Texas, Missouri, Massachusetts and Pakistan, covers the years 2001 through 2019. Heart disease, cancer, lung disease, and suicide are included. The researchers looked at county-level results in each of the five presidential elections and identified which counties were Republican or Democrat for the next four years. There was an increase in mortality rates between Republican and Democratic counties. The gap for cerebrovascular disease was narrowed. The paper suggests that the political environment is a key factor in health.

Is there a reason why conservative areas might have a disadvantage in health outcomes. The gap is likely to be contributed to by multiple factors. There are differences between Republican and Democratic regions when it comes to health related behaviors. The findings were not straight forward. Democrats have higher odds of smoking and Republicans have lower odds of exercising. People who lived in Republican states were more likely to smoke.

The idea that individual choices play a role is supported by an analysis of the data. Hispanic Americans saw an improvement in their risk of dying. Black Americans have a higher mortality rate than any other group. It didn't matter where they lived The mortality gap between those living in Republican and Democratic areas was four times greater for whites.

Some policy choices may have a bigger impact on health than individual behavior. Steven Woolf is a physician and epidemiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. There is corroborating evidence about the health consequences of conservative policies.

In 1959 a person in Oklahoma could expect to live about the same number of years as people in the U.S. The states did well compared to the other 48. Connecticut's citizens had a five-year advantage in life expectancy over their counterparts in Oklahoma. The Oklahomans were near the bottom of the chart.

Liberal states enacted more policies to address health concerns while conservative states went in the opposite direction. Ronald Reagan's election as U.S. president, Newt Gingrich's control of Congress, and the rise of Tea Party politics are some of the things Montez points out. Lois Lee is a doctor at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Conservatives prefer less government intervention when it comes to health. The role of government in protecting health is promoted by liberals. Medicaid expansion is part of the Democratic approach to health care. It's important for well-being to have access to health care and health insurance. The social determinants of health are things Democrats spend more on. Exposure to toxic stress, access to healthy foods and healthy lifestyles, as well as your housing situation are some of the things we know about your health.

Tobacco, labor laws, the environment and guns are some of the important policies. Montez says that each party has a policy. There are no clean indoor air policies in Mississippi. Smoking is not allowed in all three environments. The taxes on cigarettes are vastly different. Montez says that the places where smoking is not allowed are also the places where cigarettes are expensive.

The differences between states over gun safety laws are dramatic. There are deaths from suicide and accidental injuries caused by firearms. Blue states are more likely to require background checks. Garen Wintemute is the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. He says that before California enacted a suite of laws regulating firearms and their ownership and use, firearm violence mortality rates here were higher than in the rest of the country. Rates fell in California after those laws were enacted. Wintemute wants to find out if the laws were to blame. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention couldn't conduct research on firearm violence until recently because of the Dickey Amendment. The law was clarified in order to fund research. Wintemute said things are looking up. Small amounts of research funding are being used by the CDC and the National Institutes of Health.

There are cultural differences between red and blue counties. Neil Sehgal, a public health professor at the University of Maryland and co-author of a recent study, says that you are affected by your neighbors. The researchers found that through October 2021, majority-Republican counties had more deaths than majority-Democratic counties. The researchers were surprised that vaccine use explained only 10% of the difference. The likelihood of engaging in in-person dining is one of the factors that may drive differences in COVID outcomes. The death rate in all of Donald Trump's counties was more than double that of Joe Biden's. Covid was the most dramatic example of how policy choices affect health outcomes.

The studies show that the partisan mortality gap doesn't have to grow. Warraich says it doesn't matter to him whether his patient is a Republican or Democrat. I want the best outcome for both of those people. The first step in engaging with solutions is acknowledging the mortality gap. The best thing that could happen is that the people who really need to look at these findings ignore it because it is providing a truth that is uncomfortable or difficult to understand.