Public health disparities provide an important lens for understanding social and political change in the USA. Using individual-level medical data and death records, this study shows that conservative Americans experienced worsening health and higher mortality than liberals during the 2010s. Here we find evidence consistent with two potential mechanisms. First, demographic realignment within political coalitions brought less healthy individuals into the conservative camp. Yet by the 2020s, demographic change, public policy and COVID-19 do not fully account for the widening gap in mortality rates. Public opinion data are consistent with a second mechanism: declining trust in medical professionals among right-leaning individuals, including lower willingness to seek care, follow clinical advice or believe in medication effectiveness, even for issues unrelated to COVID-19. These patterns suggest that growing ideological divides in health behaviours are leaving conservative Americans increasingly vulnerable to preventable health risks. Using individual-level medical data and death records, this study finds that conservatives in the USA experienced worse health and higher mortality than liberals during the 2010s. No significant gaps in biomarkers or mortality were present before the 2010s.
Don’t you know that the US and Canada are twins? Don’t you see that your country is going the exact same way ours is? Those are your friends and family who are reading the same trash, maybe wedging its way into the same cracks in their logic that killed someone I loved.
If it hasn’t happened, it will. And I hope when it does, you try to save them too.
Yes, I know that your inaction is likely to make this our problem eventually too.
And when it does, any “friends and family” espousing that garbage gets cut off AT BEST. If they’re fortunate, they’ll get to keep all their teeth. And if they decide that conspiracy theories are more attractive than, you know, staying alive, good riddance.
Looking through your comment history, you seem to make a career out of blaming and mocking victims. I have to wonder who hurt you so badly that you spend all day hurting other people. How does using your trauma like it’s a keyboard assault weapon help your cause?
Don’t you know that the US and Canada are twins? Don’t you see that your country is going the exact same way ours is? Those are your friends and family who are reading the same trash, maybe wedging its way into the same cracks in their logic that killed someone I loved.
If it hasn’t happened, it will. And I hope when it does, you try to save them too.
Yes, I know that your inaction is likely to make this our problem eventually too.
And when it does, any “friends and family” espousing that garbage gets cut off AT BEST. If they’re fortunate, they’ll get to keep all their teeth. And if they decide that conspiracy theories are more attractive than, you know, staying alive, good riddance.
Looking through your comment history, you seem to make a career out of blaming and mocking victims. I have to wonder who hurt you so badly that you spend all day hurting other people. How does using your trauma like it’s a keyboard assault weapon help your cause?
MAGA aren’t victims. They’re the perpetrators. Fuck’s sake, these ignorant bigots have agency.
“Victims.”
You’re confusing laziness and complacency with helplessness.
Who hurt you? lol