Are Republicans healthier than Democrats?
From S. V. Subramanian and Jessica Perkins.
They write:
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.
Comments
Or that Democrats tend to be poor and or minority and those groups have worst health
Posted by: Vader | November 2, 2008 11:14 PM
Vader - can’t you see from the graphs that they were controlling for that?
My impression is that the causality is reversed - as you know, “a liberal is a conservative with a gay son”. Same for health: those who experience first hand the difficulties of health problems without health care, tend to prefer those who promote health care.
Posted by: Dubi Kanengisser | November 3, 2008 03:11 AM
Wow, it takes a special kind of stupid not to notice that being sick is itself something that would cause one to flee the Republican Party.
Posted by: Punditus Maximus | November 3, 2008 11:33 AM
I think Dubi is right; the causality is reversed.
It’s much more simple and elegant (Occam’s Razor anyone?) than the more complex and indirect “personal values” stuff.
Posted by: superdude | November 3, 2008 11:58 AM
The answer to the mystery is that the authors published the wrong numbers. I’ve explained how this happened (with screenshots of their source) here (http://stevekass.com/2008/11/04/are-republicans-healthier-than-democrats/).
Posted by: Steve Kass | November 4, 2008 04:19 PM