Want to live longer? Don’t vote Republican: New study says liberals outlive conservatives
This is the conclusion of a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health that found, in the United States at least, "political party affiliation and political ideology appear to be different predictors of mortality."
The findings took the researchers by surprise, and fly in the face of previous studies which have generally suggested the opposite. Some studies outside the US found that conservatives claimed to be not only happier, but healthier too, while US Republicans reported the same traits.
Based on the assumption that "happy and healthy" should equal longer life, those conservatives seemed to be right on the money when it comes to longevity. Other research has indicated that predominantly Republican or conservative communities had lower death rates.
These previous findings, that conservative political ideology is associated with better health, were based on background ecological and cross-sectional studies. They did not take account of real individual death rates through time. This is why the new study took a different approach and looked at longitudinal analyses of mortality because, as the authors say, "subjective assessments of ideology may confound subjective assessments of health, particularly in cross-sectional analyses."
The research team used data from the 2008 General Social Survey-National Death Index data set. Proportional analysis models were used see if there was a correlation between political party affiliation or political ideology and "time to death". The study also attempted to identify whether self-reported happiness and self-rated health acted as mediators between political beliefs and time to death.
A total of 32,830 participants took part and provided the raw data for analysis. The researchers then tracked which of the participants died, and how quickly, over an average 15 year period, giving them a total follow-up time of 498,845 person-years. The conclusions of the study were that "that political party affiliation and political ideology are associated with mortality." However, say the authors, "with the exception of independents, political party differences are explained by the participants' underlying sociodemographic characteristics. With respect to ideology, conservatives and moderates are at greater risk for mortality during follow-up than liberals."
Put simply, those self-proclaimed conservatives and moderates were 6% more likely to die during follow-up than those who described themselves as liberals. Other relevant traits, such as age, sex and socioeconomic status were not taken into account. There was no discernible difference between proponents of the main political parties. Republicans and Democrats had very similar death rates but independents had lower death rates.
Lead author Pabayo told USA Today that the team were surprised by the findings but insist that they conclusions are credible because they are derived from individual death records which, he claims, are a "more valid measure" than self-reported health and the community death rates on which previous studies have relied.
What, if anything, lies behind the findings? Without indulging in stereotyping the life styles of the respective, much as we'd like to, it may be that there is something about the way the liberal lives his life that gives him the edge when fending off the Reaper. But, as the study did not take into account things like health care access, smoking, drinking, diet, and so on, there is no hard evidence to help us draw those conclusions. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/want-to-live-longer-dont-vote-republican-new-study-says-liberals-outlive-conservatives/
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