The GQP went all-in with conspiracy theories that medicine was dangerous, doctors are corrupt and stupid, and vaccines are bad. It has produced results that are bad for them, arguably good for America though.
Your politics could be making you ill, and conservatives are dying at significantly higher rates than liberals, according to a recent study in Nature.
Over the past decade, a health gap has emerged in the United States. While extensive research has examined how factors like income and education shape health outcomes, political ideology has largely been overlooked—until now.
A paper published last month analyzed individual health data from a long-term study of a large, representative sample of Americans across all 50 states.
“2010 is the last year in which we can say fairly clearly that there is not this gap,” Elizabeth Elder, a coauthor of the study, tells Fast Company. “By 2020 we have pretty clear evidence of a gap in which conservatives are less healthy than liberals.”
By 2016, the gap had begun to appear in biomarker measures. By 2020, it was showing up in deaths from causes such as heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Since then, the gap has only widened. Between 2020 and 2022, only 0.2% of “very liberal” respondents died of internal causes, compared with 1.34% of “very conservative” respondents.
Your politics could be making you ill, and conservatives are dying at significantly higher rates than liberals, according to a recent study in Nature.
Over the past decade, a health gap has emerged in the United States. While extensive research has examined how factors like income and education shape health outcomes, political ideology has largely been overlooked—until now.
A paper published last month analyzed individual health data from a long-term study of a large, representative sample of Americans across all 50 states.
“2010 is the last year in which we can say fairly clearly that there is not this gap,” Elizabeth Elder, a coauthor of the study, tells Fast Company. “By 2020 we have pretty clear evidence of a gap in which conservatives are less healthy than liberals.”
By 2016, the gap had begun to appear in biomarker measures. By 2020, it was showing up in deaths from causes such as heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Since then, the gap has only widened. Between 2020 and 2022, only 0.2% of “very liberal” respondents died of internal causes, compared with 1.34% of “very conservative” respondents.
