Seit den 2010er Jahren erleben amerikanische Konservative zunehmend schlechtere Gesundheitsergebnisse und eine höhere Sterblichkeit als Liberale. Der Mechanismus scheint darin zu liegen, dass das Vertrauen in medizinisches Fachpersonal abnimmt und die Bereitschaft, medizinische Hilfe in Anspruch zu nehmen, klinischen Rat zu befolgen und an die Wirksamkeit von Medikamenten zu glauben, abnimmt.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-026-02474-9
25 Kommentare
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Its how they are „stickin‘ it to the Libs!“. That’ll teach them to push for universal healthcare.
All kidding aside, it shows cult like conservatism has become. Putting indoctrinated ideology ahead of what is best for yourself, family and town.
No surprise they don’t care about others and they definitely don’t care about themselves
Best news I’ve heard in ten years.
It seems like willful ignorance and stupidity are the mechanism
Who’d have thunk that the people who dont take vaccines and take homeopathics have worse health
There’s definitely a “tough guy” aversion to doctors among conservative men I’ve encountered many times. “I don’t go to the doctor unless I’m bleedin’ huhuhuh” kinda stuff
RN here – in my experience, „declining trust in medical professionals“ does NOT stop them from seeking healthcare. They just use it to justify why they don’t follow preventative healthcare plans IE eating better, managing their diabetes better, exercising more, getting vaccinated (especially this one). It’s like they have a personal vendetta again anything that could be considered „preventative“.
I mean, look at how many threw giant fits during covid, absolutely refused to wear a mask/get the „jab“, made sure we all knew they weren’t scared BUT still rushed to the hospital when they got sick.
Conservatives (although I have no idea a patient’s political leanings unless they tell me) seem to have no problem coming to the clinic or ER when they realize that their BS home treatments do not work and/or make their symptoms worse. They suddenly trust healthcare professionals/medicine when they get sick enough.
And then they have the audacity to threw tantrums when we, the healthcare team, cannot fix their problems – which they could have minimized or avoided outright by using preventative measures – immediately.
It’s exhausting.
EDIT: for a group of people who seemingly do not trust the effectiveness of medication, they sure ask for/demand antibiotics for everything under the sun.
If you don’t believe science then guess what you believe instead: nonsense. Good luck with that!
I would have more sympathy if there was a corresponding change in behavior, but there never is.
In my clinical experience people who are obnoxious enough to be openly political (which is always conservative probably due to where I treat) also think their own opinions about their medical care hold some weight despite having no training or education. I would guess this goes back to the conservatives agenda to destroy trust in experts/institutions. The confusing thing is why they come in at all. Do they just like arguing with me?
Natural selection baby! You love to see it.
The greatest trick liberals ever pulled was allowing conservatives to convince themselves that they were smarter than those doctors.
I think they also eat less healthy. Lots more red meat, sticking to standard American diet.
How much did Covid skew this?
Apart from being an ardent 2A supporter, my attention to health and medical advice immediately alienates me from the many conservatives I encounter at the range. The pandemic was that final nail in the coffin that left me really on neither side.
Guess I’m just the weird anomaly that doesn’t fit in with either political spectrum. I’ll immediately start talking about glancing through peer reviewed journals and other publications on a particular topic. While people I thought were friends start gripping their cross. So now I usually just keep talk of my support for 2A to an absolute minimum when I’m around like minded folks when it comes to medicine.
There also a strong correlation of living in a rural community and identifying as conservative and rural communities often have worse hospital and clinic coverage. So, even without any preference it still coukd just be measuring poor availability of healthcare in rural areas.
have they heard about ivermectin? it cures cancer now
This is such an ideologically loaded speculation for a mechanism.
The correlation between **economic distress** and avoiding medical care is generally stronger, more direct, and more mechanistically established than the correlation between political ideology and health outcomes in the Nature paper.
Less-educated, rural, **economically stressed**, and medically vulnerable populations **increasingly became part of the Republican coalition**; those groups also experienced worsening mortality and morbidity.
Everyone I know who defers medical care or dental care is doing it because they can’t afford it. The COVID-denying, stupid republican is mostly a strawman and a punching bag for people who don’t want to acknowledge that many economically disadvantaged people turned to the Republican party recently. And the medical distrust for these people is rooted in their distrust of power.
Darwin baby! Wait- I mean- „You tellin me i came frum a dang monkey? I aint no monkey!“
**Title:** Re: Since the 2010s, American conservatives increasingly experience worse health outcomes and higher mortality than liberals.
Interesting finding, and the proposed mechanism (eroding institutional trust) is highly plausible. The correlation is robust, but the analysis would be strengthened by explicitly controlling for known confounders like rurality, socioeconomic status, and health insurance coverage rates, which are not evenly distributed across the political spectrum. If these were adequately controlled for and the trust mechanism still holds, it presents a critical public health challenge: how to design non-partisan health messaging that effectively bridges epistemic divides. Future work should explore longitudinal data to see if this mortality gap widens post-2020, given the accelerated polarization around medical science during the pandemic.
Turns out that „owning the libs“ is bad for your health.
There’s no cure for „stupid“ unfortunately
Thank Darwin for these outcomes.
For those who are protesting that these results might be simply due to socioeconomic differences between liberals and conservatives, the study clearly lists how it controlled for those. Specifically, the following variables were listed as study covariates:
* Race/ethnicity
* Sex
* Education level
* Income
* Health insurance status
* Year of birth
* Prior health level
* Rural vs. non-rural residence
The study results show significant differences in health outcomes between liberals and conservatives accounting for all those listed covariates.