Scientists say Americans die younger in states run by conservatives

‘More liberal policies on the environment, gun safety, labor, economic taxes and tobacco taxes in a state were associated with lower mortality’

Americans are dying younger in states run by conservatives compared to those governed by liberals, scientists from several universities have found.

The authors of a new study write that “simulations indicate that changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019, while changing them to a fully conservative orientation might have cost 217,635 lives”.

The study was released on the platform Plos One, which says it’s “an inclusive journal community working together to advance science for the benefit of society, now and in the future”.

The authors of the study come from Syracuse University, New York, Harvard, Massachusetts, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Washington, the University of Texas at Austin and Canada’s University of Western Ontario.

“Results show that the policy domains were associated with working-age mortality,” the authors added.

Going against that trend, the researchers discovered that “more conservative marijuana policies” was linked to lower mortality, but the study also found that “more liberal policies on the environment, gun safety, labor, economic taxes and tobacco taxes in a state were associated with lower mortality in that state”.

The study authors found that “especially strong associations were observed between certain domains and specific causes of death” such as “between the gun safety domain and suicide mortality among men, between the labor domain and alcohol-induced mortality, and between both the economic tax and tobacco tax domains and CVD [cardiovascular] mortality”.

Figures collected by the National Council of State Legislatures show that as of June of 2022, the GOP controlled 61 per cent of state legislatures while Democrats were in charge of 35 per cent.

The Republicans were in charge of 46 per cent of full state governments, while the Democrats operated 12 per cent, with 12 states having split governments.

The researchers write that life expectancy in the entirety of the US is lower than in most other high-income countries, noting that the US ended up between Cuba and Albania.

“The rise in working-age mortality rates in the US in recent decades largely reflects stalled declines in cardiovascular disease mortality alongside rising mortality from alcohol-induced causes, suicide and drug poisoning,” the authors write. “It has been especially severe in some US states.”

“Building on recent work, this study examined whether US state policy contexts may be a central explanation,” they added.

Ahead of the midterms on 8 November, President Joe Biden and the Democrats have emphasized the success and need for increased social spending, but the GOP may take back control of both the US House and Senate.

The researchers noted that “one study found that US life expectancy could increase by nearly four years if the country matched the average level of social policy generosity offered in 17 other high-income countries”.

“More recent research has turned attention to policies and politics at the US state level, given the federalist structure of the US political system and the large size and geographical spread of the population,” they added. “This new work suggests that changes in state policies and politics may have played a contributory role in producing the troubling US mortality trends.”

Researchers Jason Beckfield and Clare Bambra wrote that “there is evidence that the US mortality disadvantage is, in part, a welfare-state disadvantage”.

“We estimate that life expectancy in the US would be approximately 3.77 years longer, if it had just the average social policy generosity of the other 17 OECD nations,” they said.