health
Conservatives and Liberals Have Diverging Health Outcomes. Why?
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TL;DR
- A recent study analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health found a significant divergence in health outcomes between liberals and conservatives over the last decade.
- By 2016-2018, the most conservative individuals exhibited notably worse health results, as measured by biomarkers like BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood glucose, and inflammation.
- Mortality data also showed a divide, with conservatives dying at higher rates than liberals by the 2020s, particularly from internal causes like heart disease and cancer, even after controlling for COVID-19 related deaths.
- While demographic factors like education, income, and race explain about half of the health gap, the remaining half is unexplained by observable characteristics.
- Researchers propose that a potential driver of this unexplained gap is lower trust among conservatives in their primary care physicians and a decreased adherence to medical advice.
- A separate survey indicated that conservatives, Republicans, and Trump voters reported significantly lower trust in their doctors and less willingness to follow their guidance compared to liberal respondents.