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U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

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Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#11

Post by Mountain_Skies »

robotblake wrote: post #3
jka wrote: post #2

"In this study, in which we linked U.S. mortality and election data from 2001 to 2019, people in counties that voted for Republican presidential candidates were more like to die prematurely than those in counties that voted for Democratic candidates, and the gap has grown sixfold over the last two decades. We found similar results when we looked only at counties that voted for one party’s candidate throughout that pe…

Of specific note I found this quote very alarming > There was no single cause of death driving this lethal wedge: The death rate due to all 10 of the most common causes of death has widened between Republican and Democratic areas.

Surely the solution is for Democrats to force themselves on Republicans, who should accept this imposition of control for their own good.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#14

Post by commandlinefan »

qgin wrote: post #10
mistrial9 wrote: post #4

Isn't this basic demagoguery 101 -- attach huge social outcomes to the victory or loss of one political party?

It’s not about the victory or loss of either party. It’s saying there are two Americas developing simultaneously and people in each have different health outcomes. Are the parties causative? Or are they just the labels that we have to describe the two groups currently? We don’t know.

> Are the parties causative?

Or is it the other way around? Commenters occasionally often point out the "red states" are the biggest recipients of welfare in spite of being the ones that vote most against it. To me, it seems that the most likely explanation for this is that the voters there see the negative effects of welfare and the ones who are voting for it are insulated most from the unintended consequences. It could just as easily be that the voters who see the most death are voting for the party they most feel will enact policies that will lead to less of it.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#15

Post by fullshark »

qgin wrote: post #10
mistrial9 wrote: post #4

Isn't this basic demagoguery 101 -- attach huge social outcomes to the victory or loss of one political party?

It’s not about the victory or loss of either party. It’s saying there are two Americas developing simultaneously and people in each have different health outcomes. Are the parties causative? Or are they just the labels that we have to describe the two groups currently? We don’t know.

The end of the piece makes it pretty explicit what the point is actually: authors believe democratic policies are better and should be pushed to republican regions. They then go on to talk out of both sides of their mouth on this front, that "health care shouldn't be enmeshed with politics" but hoping that politicians will "listen" to them.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#17

Post by nr2x »

tokai wrote: post #5

Doesn't this just reflect the class of the average voter of the two parties, ie. measuring the different socio-economic realities? Seems a bit over the top to hitch it all on ‘political environment’. I'm no expert but it feels like these MDs should have gotten a social scientist or two to co-author.

It’s access to care after 2008, democratic areas expanded it, republicans didn’t.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#19

Post by timr »

commandlinefan wrote: post #14
qgin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about the victory or loss of either party. It’s saying there are two Americas developing simultaneously and people in each have different health outcomes. Are the parties causative? Or are they just the labels that we have to describe the two groups currently? We don’t know.

> Are the parties causative? Or is it the other way around? Commenters occasionally often point out the "red states" are the biggest recipients of welfare in spite of being the ones that vote most against it. To me, it seems that the most likely explanation for this is that the voters there see the negative effects of welfare and the ones who are voting for it are insulated most from the unintended consequences. It c…

Before looking for cause, you always look for plausible co-variates. Here, there are a ton: red counties tend to be rural. Rural places have huge problems with health care access, obesity, addiction, poverty, and many other issues that predict poor health outcome.

Re: U.S. death rates show how politics are affecting public health

#20

Post by tomrod »

splitrocket wrote: post #12

And also: Poor folks don't survive long enough to become seniors who vote. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/05/poor-people-often-do...

Yep. I have done quite a bit of work in the SDoH space. It's pretty widely discussed thst there is a negative correlation of SDoH measures like ADI and age.

Tragic.

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