Age and Politics

Alternet America -   A paper published last month in Nature analyzed individual health data from a long-term study of a large, representative sample of Americans across all 50 states. The finding is blunt: conservatives are dying at significantly higher rates than liberals, and the gap did not exist a decade ago.

“2010 is the last year in which we can say fairly clearly that there is not this gap,” coauthor Elizabeth Elder told Fast Company. By 2016 it showed up in biomarkers. By 2020 it was showing up in deaths from heart disease, cancer, and stroke.

The numbers are stark and specific. Between 2020 and 2022, only 0.2% of “very liberal” respondents died of internal causes, compared with 1.34% of “very conservative” respondents.