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Politics could be bad for your health

Dr Raj Persaud

Could your political beliefs determine how long you live? New research from sociologist Dr William Cockerham and colleagues from the University of Alabama in the United States has found that differences in attitudes to looking after your body and your health are predicted by your political allegiances.

It seems those who believe the state should take responsibility for most aspects of life also tend to eschew personal responsibility for taking care of themselves. As a result, they are more likely to engage in lifestyles hazardous to their health, including drinking to excess and not exercising. ...

...This theory, that your political orientation could influence how much responsibility you took for your health, was recently tested by Dr Cockerham and colleagues by investigating the health practices of a national sample of Russians who wished for a return to socialism as it was before Gorbachev. They were compared with a group who favoured staying with a more free-market economy.

The data was collected through personal interviews by the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, a series of nationally representative surveys of the Russian Federation consisting of almost 9,000 adults.

The results were that pro-socialists are nearly one and half times more likely to be frequent drinkers than anti-socialists. Anti-socialists are also significantly more likely to take exercise, in fact, being pro-socialist decreased your chances of exercising regularly by almost 50 per cent. Furthermore, anti-socialists were almost 25 per cent more likely to go for preventive health check-ups compared to pro-socialists.

It is clear the Soviet government promoted neither individuality nor individual initiative in health matters. If, as it is argued, this heritage has indeed fostered a lack of responsibility for individual health promotion in Russia, then those persons wishing to return to this system would seem most likely to practice a negative health lifestyle. The data from this recent research suggests that this is indeed the case, as pro-socialist respondents generally demonstrated less positive health promoting activities than anti-socialists.

This new research is important because it suggests that a vital aspect of a nation’s health status has been neglected, and previously even not measured at all, which is how prevalent the culture of personal responsibility for health is. Self-reliance would seem to be something to be encouraged rather than a passive over-reliance on the state, as those who take more responsibility for their health seem to indeed be healthier as a direct result. ...