Mental health symptoms following the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.

On January 6, 2021, rioters stormed the US Capitol to overturn the Congressional certification of Joseph Biden as the 46th president of the United States. In previous work, the symbolic dis/empowerment framework, as a result of sociopolitical context, has influenced health outcomes in certain sub-populations. We examine whether the Capitol Riot corresponds with an increase in mental health symptoms and explore whether this relation differs by individual political party affiliation and/or state electoral college victory. We utilize the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative panel of adults, between March 10, 2020-July 11, 2021. Using fixed effects linear regression, we find a modest increase above expected levels in mental health symptoms immediately following the Capitol Riot. This result holds for Democrats overall, Democrats in Biden states, and when restricting analyses to only states that voted for Biden (or separately, for Trump). Democrats show the greatest increase of mental health symptoms following the Capital Riot, supporting the symbolic dis/empowerment framework as well as notions of political polarization and allegiance. Social and political events of national importance may adversely affect mental health of specific subpopulations.

Investigating the Relation of Political Orientation and Vaccination Outcomes: Identifying the Roles of Political Ideology, Party Affiliation, and Vaccine Hesitancy.

Popular press and academic articles alike suggest that political orientation is a primary determinant of vaccination willingness, vaccination, and vaccine word-of-mouth (i.e., sharing of information regarding vaccines). In the current article, we test the validity of these suggestions, and we also assess the differential roles of political ideology (e.g., liberal-conservative) and party affiliation (e.g., Democrat-Republican) as well as the mediating effect of vaccine hesitancy's dimensions. To do so, we perform a four-wave survey study with 223 participants that completed all waves. Our results support that political orientation indeed relates to our outcomes of interest. Our results also show that political ideology has a more pronounced effect than party affiliation, and the vaccine hesitancy dimensions of Health Risks and Healthy mediate many of these relations. From these results, we suggest many directions for future research and practice, including the integration of political discourse theories in studies on political orientations and vaccination.

American Political-Party Affiliation as a Predictor of Usage of an Adultery Website.

The more politically conservative Americans are, the more restrictive their sexual attitudes are. A natural follow-up question is how this difference in attitudes relates to actual behavior. But self-reports of sexual behavior may be compromised by a social desirability bias that is influenced by the very sexual attitudes at issue. We employed a non-self-reported measure of sexual behavior: usage of the adultery-focused dating website Ashley Madison. Linking an August 2015 leak of user data from Ashley Madison to 2012 voter registration rolls from five U.S. states, we found 80,000 matches between 200,000 Ashley Madison user accounts and 50 million voters. According to simple rates in the sample, and also to predictively validated regression models controlling for state, gender, and age, we found that Democrats were least likely to use Ashley Madison, Libertarians were most likely, and Republicans, Greens, and unaffiliated voters were in between. Our results provide support for theories arguing that people with stricter sexual attitudes are paradoxically more likely to engage in deviant sexual behavior.

Associação político-partidária e influência da estrutura de incentivos na adesão dos municípios às políticas de saúde: evidências do Projeto Mais Médicos para o Brasil / Political partisanship and influence from the funding structure on the adhesion of municipalities to health policies: evidence from the project Mais Médicos para o Brasil

O projeto Mais Médicos para o Brasil é uma ação do programa Mais Médicos, formulada pelo governo federal e implementada pelos municípios brasileiros a partir de 2013. Sua finalidade é levar médicos brasileiros e estrangeiros para regiões onde faltam esses profissionais. O estudo investiga se há associação político-partidária e influência da estrutura de incentivos na decisão dos municípios em aderir ao projeto. Para tanto, utiliza dados de adesão dos municípios em função da filiação partidária dos prefeitos e realiza entrevistas com secretários de saúde de dois municípios selecionados da região de saúde de Limeira, no estado de São Paulo. Os resultados sugerem haver tanto associação político-partidária como influência da estrutura de incentivos. Conclui-se que mesmo em países federativos e com marcadas desigualdades regionais, políticas públicas nacionais que demandam cooperação de diferentes esferas de governo podem ser implementadas com relativo sucesso, desde que uma estrutura apropriada de incentivos tenha sido prevista na formulação da política.(AU)

The project Mais Médicos para o Brasil (More Doctors for Brazil) is an action of the program Mais Médicos, created by the Brazilian federal government and implemented by the Brazilian municipalities starting in 2013. The goal of the program is to provide Brazilian and foreign doctors to regions of the country where these professionals are lacking. This study investigates if political partisanship and the funding structure have influence in the decision of municipalities to join the project. For such, this study uses data of adhesion from municipalities depending on the party affiliation of mayors and conducts interviews with health secretaries from two municipalities selected in the region of Limeira in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The results suggest that both political partisanship and the funding structure have influence. This study concludes that even in federated countries marked by regional differences, national public policies that require cooperation from different government levels can be implemented with relative success, as long as a proper funding structure is designed during the formulation of the policy.(AU)

More Polarized but More Independent: Political Party Identification and Ideological Self-Categorization Among U.S. Adults, College Students, and Late Adolescents, 1970-2015.

In three nationally representative surveys of U.S. residents (N = 10 million) from 1970 to 2015, more Americans in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) identified as Independent, including when age effects were controlled. More in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) expressed polarized political views, including stronger political party affiliation or more extreme ideological self-categorization (liberal vs. conservative) with fewer identifying as moderate. The correlation between party affiliation and ideological views grew stronger over time. The overall trend since the 1970s was toward more Americans identifying as Republican or conservative. Older adults were more likely to identify as conservative and Republican. More Millennials (born 1980-1994) identify as conservative than either GenXers or Boomers did at the same age, and fewer are Democrats compared with Boomers. These trends are discussed in the context of social identification processes and their implications for the political dynamics in the United States.