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Diverging life expectancies and voting patterns in the 2016 US Presidential Election

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  • Bor, J.

Abstract

Objectives. To assess whether voting patterns in the 2016 US presidential election were correlated with long-run trends in county life expectancy. Methods. I examined county-level voting data from the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections and assessed Donald Trump's share of the 2016 vote, change in the Republican vote share between 2008 and 2016, and changes in absolute numbers of Democratic and Republican votes. County-level estimates of life expectancy at birth were obtained for 1980 and 2014 from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Results. Changes in county life expectancy from 1980 to 2014 were strongly negatively associated with Trump's vote share, with less support for Trump in counties experiencing greater survival gains. Counties in which life expectancy stagnated or declined saw a 10-percentage-point increase in the Republican vote share between 2008 and 2016. Conclusions. Residents of counties left out from broader life expectancy gains abandoned the Democratic Party in the 2016 presidential election. Since coming to power, the Trump administration has proposed cuts to health insurance for the poor, social programs, health research, and environmental and worker protections, which are key determinants of population health. Health gaps likely will continue to widen without significant public investment in population health.

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  • Bor, J., 2017. "Diverging life expectancies and voting patterns in the 2016 US Presidential Election," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 107(10), pages 1560-1562.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2017.303945_6
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.303945
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    Cited by:

    1. Kannan, Viji Diane & Brown, Theodore M. & Kunitz, Stephen J. & Chapman, Benjamin P., 2019. "Political parties and mortality: The role of social status and personal responsibility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 1-7.
    2. Angus Deaton, 2022. "The great divide: education, despair, and death," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 57(4), pages 161-168, October.
    3. Carolina Arteaga & Victoria Barone, 2023. "Democracy and The Opioid Epidemic," Working Papers tecipa-765, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    4. Zhaochen He & John Camobreco & Keith Perkins, 2022. "How he won: Using machine learning to understand Trump’s 2016 victory," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 905-947, May.
    5. Madani, Fatima & Seenivasan, Satheesh & Ma, Junzhao, 2021. "Determinants of store patronage: The roles of political ideology, consumer and market characteristics," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Bilal, Usama & Knapp, Emily A. & Cooper, Richard S., 2018. "Swing voting in the 2016 presidential election in counties where midlife mortality has been rising in white non-Hispanic Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 33-38.
    7. Gollust, Sarah E. & Haselswerdt, Jake, 2021. "A crisis in my community? Local-level awareness of the opioid epidemic and political consequences," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 291(C).
    8. Gregori Galofre-Vila & Maria Gomez-Leon & David Stuckler, 2021. "A Lesson from History? The 1918 Inuenza pandemic and the rise of Italian Fascism: A cross-city quantitative and historical text qualitative analysis," Documentos de Trabajo - Lan Gaiak Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra 2102, Departamento de Economía - Universidad Pública de Navarra.
    9. Dobis, Elizabeth A. & Stephens, Heather M. & Skidmore, Mark & Goetz, Stephan J., 2020. "Explaining the spatial variation in American life expectancy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    10. Niederdeppe, Jeff & Avery, Rosemary J. & Liu, Jiawei & Gollust, Sarah E. & Baum, Laura & Barry, Colleen L. & Welch, Brendan & Tabor, Emmett & Lee, Nathaniel W. & Fowler, Erika Franklin, 2021. "Exposure to televised political campaign advertisements aired in the United States 2015–2016 election cycle and psychological distress," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    11. Galofré-Vilà, Gregori & Meissner, Christopher M. & McKee, Martin & Stuckler, David, 2021. "Austerity and the Rise of the Nazi Party," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 81-113, March.
    12. Rodriguez, Javier M., 2018. "Health disparities, politics, and the maintenance of the status quo: A new theory of inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 36-43.
    13. Wasfy, Jason H. & Healy, Emma W. & Cui, Jinghan & Stewart, Charles, 2020. "Relationship of public health with continued shifting of party voting in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    14. Alexi Gugushvili & Jonathan Koltai & David Stuckler & Martin McKee, 2020. "Votes, populism, and pandemics," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 65(6), pages 721-722, July.
    15. Atheendar S Venkataramani & Rourke O’Brien & Gregory L Whitehorn & Alexander C Tsai, 2020. "Economic influences on population health in the United States: Toward policymaking driven by data and evidence," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(9), pages 1-17, September.
    16. Cotti, Chad D. & Gordanier, John M. & Ozturk, Orgul D., 2020. "The relationship of opioid prescriptions and the educational performance of children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    17. Bilal, Usama & Knapp, Emily & Cooper, Richard, 2017. "Swing Voting in the 2016 Presidential Election in Counties Where Midlife Mortality has been Rising in White Non-Hispanic Americans," SocArXiv jk3n4, Center for Open Science.

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