Americans die younger in states with more conservative policies, while states with more liberal policies are associated with lower mortality rates, according to a new study published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS One.
Researchers analyzed mortality rates for all causes of death in all 50 states from 1999 to 2019 among adults aged 25 to 64. They compared that to state data on policy measures such as gun safety, labor, marijuana policy, economic taxes and tobacco taxes.
According to their simulation, if all states had switched to fully liberal policies, then 171,030 lives would have been saved in 2019.
If all states had switched to fully conservative policies, that could have cost an additional 217,635 lives, according to the study.
Researchers wrote the data is “striking” because modern U.S. society is becoming hyperpolarized and involves “growing policy divergence across states.”
“These tectonic political and policy shifts may have had profound impacts on health and wellbeing,” the authors noted.
Currently, Republicans control 46 percent of states in the U.S., while Democrats control 29 percent, with 12 states divided between legislative and executive control.
The U.S. already rates among the highest mortality rates compared to other developed countries.
With an average life expectancy of roughly 78 years, Americans die more than five years younger than Japanese people and more than two years younger than British people.
“Mortality rates provide another sobering picture of the early deaths among so many individuals in the United States,” researchers wrote in the new study. “Based on rates from 2019, for every 100 babies born in the United States, two will not survive to their 30th birthday, six will not reach age 50, and 16 will die before they can enjoy retirement at age 65.”
Researchers have been pushing to better understand why the mortality rate is so much higher in the U.S. through analyses across society to explain the troubling data, including the role of drugs, diseases and the environment.
The new study zooms out to show what’s driving the trends in each states on the macro level.
More liberal policies — such as investing in education, expanding access to health care and expanding gun safety laws, as well as policies discouraging risky behaviors through taxes — were associated with lower mortality rates, the study found.
The exception to the rule was on marijuana policy, where they found that more conservative marijuana policies were associated with a lower mortality rate.
There were some limitations to the study, including that researchers only looked at adults aged 25 to 64 and that they did not include all state policies in the data.
