Politics Makes People Sick – Literally
According to a new US study, all the political jockeying is harmful to our health, has been for some time, and even a change in party power didn’t help.
Political scientist Kevin Smith followed up a landmark 2017 survey study where he measured the effects of the political climate on Americans’ physical, social, mental and emotional health. Smith repeated the same 32-question survey twice in 2020 – two weeks prior to the election, and two weeks after. The 2020 findings mirrored the 2017 results, and again found that a large proportion of American adults blame politics for causing them stress, loss of sleep, fractured relationships and more.
Similar to the 2017 findings, the results of the 2020 surveys, published in PLOS One, showed that an estimated 40% of Americans identified politics as a significant source of stress. Between a fifth and a third of US adults also blamed politics for causing fatigue, feelings of anger, loss of temper and triggering compulsive behaviours. About a quarter of adults reported they’d given serious consideration to moving because of politics.
That the results remained mostly stable after nearly four years is cause for alarm, Smith said.
“This second round of surveys pretty conclusively demonstrates that the first survey was not out of left field – that what we found in that first survey really is indicative of what many Americans are experiencing,” Smith, chair and professor of political science, said. “It’s also unpleasant to think that in that span of time, nothing changed. A huge chunk of American adults genuinely perceive politics is exacting a serious toll on their social, their psychological and even their physical health.”
Smith repeated the survey with the same group of people both before and after the election to see if the election’s outcome would recast people’s perceptions.
“We wondered if a change in presidency, which indeed was the case, would shift attitudes, and the short answer is no,” Smith said. “If anything, the costs that people perceive politics is exacting on their health increased a little bit after the election.”
Smioth was most surprised at the repeated finding that 5% of Americans blame politics for having suicidal thoughts.
“One in 20 adults has contemplated suicide because of politics,” Smith said. “That showed up in the first survey in 2017, and we wondered if it was a statistical artifact. But in the two surveys since, we found exactly the same thing, so millions of American adults have contemplated suicide because of politics. That’s a serious health problem.”
Those most likely to be negatively affected by politics were younger, more often Democratic-leaning, more interested in politics and more politically engaged.
“If there’s a profile of a person who is more likely to experience these effects from politics, it’s people with those traits,” Smith said.
This could mean problems for democracy if this trend continued. Smith suggested investigating whether civic education had a positive effect, as those who were more knowledgeable about politics seemed to be less affected.
Source: University of Nebraska
