Are Republicans healthier than Democrats?

Update: See here from Steve Kass. Apparently the researchers below made a mistake in reading the data. That sort of thing happens sometimes–that’s one reason it can be helpful to post things on a blog, so that people can catch mistakes.

My bad in not screening this more carefully before posting. In defense of Subramanian and Perkins, they sent me the paper and it was my idea to blog it. They were planning all along to do more systematic analysis of the raw data (which they haven’t yet received).

S. V. Subramanian and Jessica Perkins write:

The prevalence of poor self-rated health was substantially higher among Democrats (25.8%) as compared to Republicans (8.5%). Lower prevalence of poor health among Republicans was also observed in analyses stratified by poverty, education or race. The prevalence of self-rated poor health among poor Democrats or Black Democrats or Democrats with less than high school education were 3 – 14 times higher than comparable Republicans, suggesting that the observed differences in health status by political ideology may not be due to confounding by race or socioeconomic status:

subu.png

These patterns remain in conditional linear regression models where self-rated health is modeled as a function of political ideological bent (ranging from strongly Democrat to strongly Republican) adjusted for age, sex, race, marital status, income, poverty, education, smoking and religious affiliation.

We also found that more than twice as many Democrats smoke (16.7%) compared to Republicans (7.1%). The prevalence of smoking among poor, less than high school education, or Black Democrats is 3 to 20 times the smoking prevalence among Republicans (see above). No matter your economic status or political alignment if you’d like to quit smoking, you can look into different vaping products and Vape Juice so you’re able to decrase your nicotine intake until you’re able to quit altogether. No matter what age you are, it is important to understand that your health should be a priority. Whether you want to try vape mods or e-cigarettes, your health should always be at the forefront of your mind. We all know that smoking has no health benefits. Cigarettes can cause serious harm to the human body, so for anyone looking to make this transition, it then comes as no surprise that they would look in companies such as Magic Vaporizers to make this lifestyle change.

The observation that Republicans enjoy better health status may reflect the core Republican value of individual responsibility, which could translate into increased adherence to health-promoting behaviors. It is also likely that Republicans tend to exhibit greater religiosity compared to Democrats.5 This could lead to health promoting social conditions, such as enhanced social ties and networks, in part facilitated through increased attendance in places of worship.

Our observations should not be interpreted to suggest that a Republican government necessarily equals better health. It would be erroneous to draw macro inferences based on individual-level correlations. Indeed, the question of which type of political ideology, reflected at the government-level, is better for population health or for reducing health disparities are entirely different queries. At the same time, our findings suggest that certain aspects of Republican ideology may implicitly be health enhancing for the individual. The healthier status of Republicans might also explain, perhaps, why they place lower priority on health care.

Interesting. S.V. said they’re waiting to get the raw data so they can run logistic regressions.

P.S. Let me add a few thoughts based on the comments below and at my other blog:

1. To the extent that difference in smoking rates are that large, this would be a big part of the story. But are smoking rates really so low among those groups of Republicans? Perhaps some mistake? I’d really want to look into this before going further. Maybe they’re vaping instead and that’s causing the discrepancy. Smokers looking to kick the habit are finding that e-cigarettes can be an alternative that is widely regarded to be a healthier option.

2. To the extent that the above (or similar) patterns are actually occurring, I think they’re interesting, even if they’re explained by reporting bias or by experiences or by differences between people in big cities and elsewhere, or whatever. As S.V. noted in his article, differences in perceived health–even if explainable by biases–could result in differences in attitudes toward health policy in general.

8 thoughts on “Are Republicans healthier than Democrats?

  1. Couldn’t the causation also run the other way? That is, having poor health might cause one to favor universal health care or some similar policy more associated with Democrats.

  2. Pingback: Hoyden About Town

  3. The other (and simpler) explanation is that the causal chain runs the other direction and that getting a serious illness helps one understand the limits of self-reliance and thus switching affiliation to Democratic.

    Certainly, I think that party allegiance is easier to switch than whether or not you have major health problems.

    Another possible explanation is that there is no difference in health, but that Republicans are oblivious to problems (or Democrats see hobgoblins).

    None of this explains the rate of smoking, though.

  4. Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Are Republicans healthier than Democrats?

  5. I think I’ve got an explanation.

    The graph presents real data, but it’s mislabeled and incorrectly explained. Specifically, the captions “Percent in Poor Health” and “Percent who Smoke” should say “In Poor Health” and “Smokers.” The graph’s bars do not represent the prevalence of smoking, poor health, etc. The bars represent the prevalence of strong Democratic and strong Republican party identification.

    Here’s an explanation of the leftmost pair of bars in the graph. The other pairs are analogous.

    In the GSS data set, 1,687 respondents reported both poor health and less than high school education. Among these 1,687 respondents, party affiliation went as follows:

    Strong Dem: 27.0%
    Not-Strong Dem: 23.6%
    Independent near-Dem: 9.1%
    Independent: 14.9%
    Independent near-Rep: 4.6%
    Not-Strong Rep: 11.2%
    Strong Rep: 8.0%

    Subramaniam and Perkins display the Strong Dem and Strong Rep percentages.

    In other words, among people reporting poor health and less than a high school education, 27% call themselves strong Democrats and 8% call themselves strong Republicans.

    Even if they’d explained it correctly, the data they present isn’t useful without more context and comparisons, and I’m not convinced there’s much enlightening here.

    Among black smokers, about 36% call themselves strong Democrats and about 2% call themselves strong Republicans. Is anyone surprised?

    The best thing about the article for me (and it’s a really good thing) is that it pointed me to the very cool online data tool on the GSS web site.

    Steve

  6. Pingback: Are Republicans Healthier Than Democrats? | The Blog of Record

  7. Pingback: Steve Kass » Are Republicans healthier than Democrats?

Comments are closed.