A very interesting article that investigates whether a person's health status, especially long term, is a factor in his voting frequency.
Although it's a few years old, the article's findings are likely still relevant, and may apply to the upcoming election.
Some observations it offers:
"People with cancer are almost three percentage points more likely to vote than otherwise similar people who do not have cancer."
"In contrast, people with heart disease are about 1.5 percentage points less likely to vote than similar people who do not suffer from heart problems."But why are cancer patients more likely to vote?
"Civic groups for people dealing with cancer may help to explain this finding ... The prevalence of cancer support and advocacy groups may give cancer patients and survivors more social resources, social networks, and supports compared to people coping with heart disease."
"Civic supports appear to make the biggest difference for the least advantaged patients and survivors."
"Remarkably, we found that blacks and people with lower levels of educational attainment who have received a cancer diagnosis vote at rates almost four percentage points higher than would be expected given their social characteristics ... This extra turnout boost was even greater than the boost we found for whites and better educated people with cancer."Curiously, it also notes:
"Our research found that people who lacked health insurance in 2009 were 4.5 percentage points less likely to report voting."
"The voting differences we document for various groups of chronic disease sufferers may not matter as much in national elections as gaps by health insurance, health status, or socioeconomic status."The article then discusses some political ramifications of these conclusions, with possible implications for future elections.
The article doesn't say whether the percentage differences it gives were statistically significant, although it might be argued that if the populations in question were large enough, even one or two percentage points could amount to thousands of votes, and therefore be significant from a political standpoint.
And while the article stresses support groups as a primary reason for larger voter turnout among cancer patients, surely there are other factors at work here as well.
For example, people faced with cancer are arguably more likely to be thinking about
what is truly important in their lives, including things like performing civic duties such as voting.
And what might be some other such factors? Can anyone think of others, and post about
them below?
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/politics/elections/people-cancer-vote-election/