Since the 2010s, American conservatives increasingly experience worse health outcomes and higher mortality than liberals (opens in new tab)

Public health disparities provide an important lens for understanding social and political change in the USA. Using individual-level medical data and death records, this study shows that conservative Americans experienced worsening health and higher mortality than liberals during the 2010s. Here we find evidence consistent with two potential mechanisms. First, demographic realignment within political coalitions brought less healthy individuals into the conservative camp. Yet by the 2020s, dem...