Americans have never been more polarized, and we are Dislike each other on partisan grounds Now more than ever. Perhaps this is not surprising, but the way it is harming our health can be surprising.
“Political polarization is harming our health in almost every way,” said Matthew is fatis a political scientist and health law scholar who studies anti-science attitudes at Boston University — and “almost every aspect of health has become politicized.” It leads to elected officials and other authority figures Make bad health policy decisions and communicate to the public in ways that link health behaviors to biased ideologies. A public is more likely to see everything through a red-or-blue lens Antitrust expertsOpt-out policies with clear health benefits, Hug policy with Clear health riskAnd making self-destructive choices.
This dynamic is not exclusive to a single party, he said Jay Van BavelA psychologist at New York University who studies social identity and morality: No one is immune to polarizing strategies in the brain.
This makes it a particularly interesting time to think about how polarization affects the decisions we make about our health. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — one of the most influential leadership roles in the United States in health — isn’t just an anti-vaccine advocate with a shaky grasp. Science He’s also a partisan shapeshifter: A scion of one of America’s most prolific Democratic dynasties, he ran for president as a Democrat, only to endorse Trump as the Republican nominee in the campaign.
Moreover, his distrust of institutions is shared by Americans across the political spectrum, and his concerns about the harmful effects of agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry on chronic disease and health agree with many health authorities.
Experts say Kennedy’s lofty platform reflects his worst ideas, and that may be true. But given the threat of polarization, it’s worth considering whether his nomination could also wreak havoc on public health — for good and ill.
Polarization leads us to make poor health choices
Jonathan OberlanderA political scientist and health policy scholar at the University of North Carolina recently published a essay Explains how political polarization deteriorates public health through its effects on both individuals and elected officials.
Political polarization Shapes how people interpret risk and who they trust and listen to, which health services they access and which behaviors they do or do not participate in. A big reason for this dynamic is the covid death rate deviate dramatically Between Republicans and Democrats: Party affiliation determines people’s willingness to get vaccinated, wear masks, social distance and take other preventive measures, Oberlander said. Republicans were less likely to take this measure and more likely to die of Covid as a result.
2 Way to depolarize your mind
1) Unfollow hyperpartisan people on social media. Jay van Bavel’s research suggests Remove the most inflammatory voices from your feed Less likely to hate people with opposing political views. In his experiments, unfollowing anger-mongers was such a positive experience that most participants chose not to follow them again after the trial ended. “It’s like removing a tumor,” he says.
2) Reduce Political interest And more IRL engagement. Instead of treating politics as a game — cheering for your “team” online, trolling people, creating memes to post on social media — do some face-to-face politics, Van Bavel says. Knock on doors, talk to voters, and generally move away from emotional catharsis and toward cooperation and collaboration. It helps to remind you that behind our politics we are all just human.
Highly polarized individuals are more likely to make self-sabotaging health choices because “their people” tell them to. This was true when right-leaning Americans took antiparasitic drugs Ivermectin and hydrochloroquine for covid (despite their adverse effects and costs) and Refused the covid vaccine (despite evidence they were safe and saved lives), and while left-of-center Americans leaned toward social distancing (despite concerns it was Harmful to mental health)
Polarized individuals are also more likely to reject policies that they believe would help those on opposing sides. Emergence called fat”Biased schadenfreude” means that people are increasingly enjoying the suffering of other people. During Covid, he explained, “Republicans enjoyed losing their jobs as a result of Democrats’ stay-at-home orders, while Democrats enjoyed Republicans getting sick as a result of being infected.”
While Americans on the left were more likely to take the risks of Covid seriously, Van Bavel notes that Republicans outnumbered Democrats on Ebola fears during the 2014 outbreak during Barack Obama’s presidency. “It’s not that America’s Democrats have a unique ability to reconcile science and epidemics and epidemic risk,” he says; It is polarized people on the left and right who distrust the other side’s ability to deal with health threats.
Polarization is also occurring in our relationships with healthcare providers. A recent one Survey Communications firm Edelman finds that people fear the politicization of medical science as much as they fear the cost of health care; 41 percent of respondents aged 18 to 34 said they would not trust medical advice from a provider who had a different political persuasion than theirs, or would stop seeing them altogether.
Health workers- the nurse In particular, as well as dentists, doctors and pharmacists – historically among the most trusted sources of health information for Americans. What happens when politics disrupts that bond, especially when health care workers are in short supply?
At the most basic level, polarization makes people feel sick. Whether people are conservative or liberal, the perception of being politically distant from the average voter in their state increases their risk of developing Depression and anxiety disorders, sleep problemsAnd Poor physical health.
Politicians and institutions can help sabotage public health
We are caught in a dangerous feedback loop with our elected officials that only amplifies our polarization. When politicians express opinions at the extremes of their party platforms, it helps the public find their own position on issues, Mota said, “because they know which party they like, they know which candidate they like, and they like them. Positions on the issues.” If a politician you like takes an extreme approach to policing, gun control, health insurance, you might as well without knowing why.
Our tendency to accept the most radical views of popularly elected officials has a ripple effect. “Very perniciously and sort of paradoxically, once the public starts to polarize, it creates an incentive for elites to polarize even more,” Mota said. That’s the kind of runaway polarization cycle we’re in right now.
One of the most powerful ways to reduce the polarization of elected officials is to publicly change their minds on high-profile health issues, Mota said. “If you can get the biased elites who usually take positions at odds with science to admit they’re wrong, to change their minds,” he says, people digress, “but that’s so hard to do because our elected officials never want to admit they’re wrong. wrong.”
People often can’t agree on which messenger they can trust to communicate that it’s possible to change your mind, but that’s an obstacle that can be overcome with some creativity. In a 2022 working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, political scientists trying to convince right-leaning Americans to take the Covid vaccine compiled a 27-second video. Donald Trump’s positive comments It is promoted as a YouTube ad about the vaccine and in low-vaccination counties. Vaccinations increased in those counties.
The example shows that “there is no one-size-fits-all” when it comes to public health messaging. Tim CallaghanA political scientist who studies health policy at Boston University and focuses on overcoming the vaccine dilemma. Public health authorities need to use different health communications — and different trusted messengers — to target Democrats and Republicans.
Could a Polarizing Pick for HHS Secretary Devastate Public Health?
And then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr
Yes, he leans toward vaccines, fluoride, and deeply unscientific approaches to the causes of gender dysphoria, mass shootings, and AIDS. However, his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) platform also rightly calls for the United States Terrible record Prevents diabetes, heart disease and unhealthy weight gain.
Like many Nutritionists No, he blames these problems on the too-cozy relationship between the agricultural sector and the federal government, resulting in permissive policies and dietary guidelines that encourage easy access to lots of highly processed foods.
A recovering addict himself — Kennedy used heroin for 14 years and says he attends a 12-step meeting every day — he speaks credibly about its challenges. Substance use disorder And advocated for increased Medicaid funding for rehabilitation programs, such as The Biden-Harris administration did. He is there too For abortion rights.
Although those who work in public health may see their goals as nonpartisan, the general public correctly Perceiving public health as a Practice in Progressive Politics. Since launching his Make America Healthy Again platform in September, Kennedy has been trying to position himself as a true independent: “Left is not good. Right is not good. Good is good,” reads an early graphic on his now-revamped website. Now that he has been anointed by Trump, Kennedy’s nomination could present an opportunity to de-link public health from either political party identity.
It may be a good thing if he advocates for changes that are beneficial to public health but that have historically received more support from the mainstream left than the right, such as increasing access to health care and reducing environmental pollution. However, this could be a bad thing if his support for anti-vaccination and anti-fluoridation, which is associated with both far-right and far-left ideologies, legitimizes those causes in the eyes of more moderate members of the public.
Whatever their politics, health communicators have a role to play Heather Lanthorne of Council on Quality Health CommunicationsA non-profit advocacy group. “On the numerous points where we disagree with MAHA, we need to do a better job of leveraging the scientific evidence and addressing their specific concerns honestly, openly and head-on,” he wrote in an email to Vox.
Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, may have had the bridge in mind when he appreciated Trump’s choice of Kennedy last week praised Kennedy’s activism against vaccine mandates and, in particular, his willingness to take on the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries.
Not everyone is so optimistic. Choosing Kennedy as an “olive branch” indicates a complete misunderstanding of his value to Trump, Motta said.
“Kennedy is in Trump’s orbit,” he says, “because they speak the same anti-intellectual language.” Some Democrats may imagine that Kennedy’s presence at HHS will boost trust in science and government among Republicans.
However, his leadership risks instead confirming the misperceptions of conservatives as well as sowing new distrust among Democrats and centrists who typically have high levels of trust in these institutions — only furthering the polarizing health doom loop.
