Apr 4, 2025 09:24 PM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1079489
INTRO: Democrats are more likely to trust their personal doctors and follow their doctors’ advice than Republicans, new research from the University of Oregon finds. UO political scientist and 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow Neil O’Brian co-authored the paper with independent researcher Thomas Bradley Kent. It recently appeared in the British Journal of Political Science.
The findings have implications for personal and public health, as well as the practice of medicine in the United States. Patients who trust their doctors are more likely to follow their doctor’s guidance on everything from managing diabetes to getting regular colon screenings, which improves health, various studies have shown.
“The big takeaway from our research is that after the COVID-19 pandemic, not only are the left and right divided on COVID-19 health matters, they're also divided on trust in their own doctor and following their doctor’s advice about their health conditions,” O’Brian said. “This broader polarization about trust in medicine has trickled down to trust in your personal doctor to treat, in some cases, your chronic illnesses.”
That’s alarming because life expectancy has stagnated in the United States and declined in the early 2020s, O’Brian said. Between 2001 and 2019, scholars also identified a growing gap in death rates between people living in Republican and Democratic-leaning counties. Residents of Democratic counties were living longer.
“If people don’t trust medical institutions or health professionals, then it makes it harder to solve health problems and could potentially exacerbate them,” O’Brian said.
Historically, politics has influenced health policy debates on topics like reproductive rights or government-sponsored health insurance. But the doctor-patient relationship stayed above the political fray, according to the survey data. Trust in one’s doctor was bipartisan. Republicans had just as much trust in their personal doctors as Democrats.
When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in 2020, O’Brian saw people take sides along party lines on public health measures like vaccines and masking. He wondered if the division also affected people’s trust in their own doctors and their willingness to follow their doctors’ recommendations on a range of health conditions. So he began to investigate.
O’Brian and Kent examined cross-sectional data, a survey of a slice of the U.S. electorate at various points in time. They found that Republicans and Democrats shared a trust in their doctors until 2020, when Democrats began to show more trust in their doctors than Republicans.
The researchers then sought to better understand why people’s attitudes had shifted... (MORE - details, no ads)
INTRO: Democrats are more likely to trust their personal doctors and follow their doctors’ advice than Republicans, new research from the University of Oregon finds. UO political scientist and 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow Neil O’Brian co-authored the paper with independent researcher Thomas Bradley Kent. It recently appeared in the British Journal of Political Science.
The findings have implications for personal and public health, as well as the practice of medicine in the United States. Patients who trust their doctors are more likely to follow their doctor’s guidance on everything from managing diabetes to getting regular colon screenings, which improves health, various studies have shown.
“The big takeaway from our research is that after the COVID-19 pandemic, not only are the left and right divided on COVID-19 health matters, they're also divided on trust in their own doctor and following their doctor’s advice about their health conditions,” O’Brian said. “This broader polarization about trust in medicine has trickled down to trust in your personal doctor to treat, in some cases, your chronic illnesses.”
That’s alarming because life expectancy has stagnated in the United States and declined in the early 2020s, O’Brian said. Between 2001 and 2019, scholars also identified a growing gap in death rates between people living in Republican and Democratic-leaning counties. Residents of Democratic counties were living longer.
“If people don’t trust medical institutions or health professionals, then it makes it harder to solve health problems and could potentially exacerbate them,” O’Brian said.
Historically, politics has influenced health policy debates on topics like reproductive rights or government-sponsored health insurance. But the doctor-patient relationship stayed above the political fray, according to the survey data. Trust in one’s doctor was bipartisan. Republicans had just as much trust in their personal doctors as Democrats.
When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in 2020, O’Brian saw people take sides along party lines on public health measures like vaccines and masking. He wondered if the division also affected people’s trust in their own doctors and their willingness to follow their doctors’ recommendations on a range of health conditions. So he began to investigate.
O’Brian and Kent examined cross-sectional data, a survey of a slice of the U.S. electorate at various points in time. They found that Republicans and Democrats shared a trust in their doctors until 2020, when Democrats began to show more trust in their doctors than Republicans.
The researchers then sought to better understand why people’s attitudes had shifted... (MORE - details, no ads)