US physicians vote at high rates vs. general US population
Key takeaways:
- U.S -physicians had a higher voting probability in 2020 and 2022 compared with the general U.S. population.
- States with the highest physician turnouts included North Dakota, Wyoming and Utah.
U.S. physicians voted at significantly higher rates compared with older U.S. adults in both the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections, according to cross-sectional study results.
“Physicians are political creatures — voting at higher rates compared with the general population,” Julianna Pacheco, PhD, researcher in the department of political science at University of Iowa, told Healio.
“Given their high participation rates, physicians may be willing to help their patients register to vote through mobilization efforts through the health care system, such as efforts advocated by Vot-ER,” she continued. “Physicians continue to play a critical role in advocating for public health.”
Calls to be ‘more civically engaged’
Previous research has indicated that physicians vote at lower rates compared with the general population, according to Pacheco.
“This has led to calls from the medical community for physicians to be more civically engaged,” she said. “We know, however, from political science that self-reported voting may be biased due to social desirability. We also know that — especially since COVID —public health is highly politicized and polarizing. We wondered what physician voting rates looked like in recent elections when using administrative data from publicly available voting records and state medical boards.”
Researchers gathered administrative data from a random 1% sample of the 2023 U.S. adult population from Catalist, which maintains a national voter registration database. The data included individual voting status in 2020 and 2022, voting history from 2016 and 2018, demographics and physician licensure from state medical boards in 2019.
Investigators used multivariable logistic regression models to compare voting rates of physicians and other U.S. adults.
Voting probability
The study included 8,913 physicians (64.4% men) and 3,607,654 nonphysicians (53.5% women).
Researchers found that compared with the general U.S. adult population, the physician population included more older-aged individuals (median age, 51 years vs. 57 years), men (46.5% vs. 64.4%) and non-Hispanic white individuals (70.7% vs. 75.5%).
Results of adjusted analyses showed physicians had a higher adjusted voting probability in the 2020 presidential election compared with the nonphysician adult population — 70% (95% CI, 67.7%-70.2%) vs. 62.6% (95% CI, 62.5%-62.7%).
In addition, physicians had a higher adjusted voting probability in the 2022 midterm election compared with nonphysicians — 48.4% (95% CI, 47.3%-49.4%) vs. 45.3% (95% CI, 45.2%-45.4%).
Of note, states with the highest physician turnouts for voting included North Dakota (98.6%), followed by Wyoming (96.7%) and Utah (95.7%). Conversely, the lowest turnout for physician voting occurred in Arkansas (76%).
“One the most consistent findings in political science is that individuals who are highly educated are more likely to vote,” Pacheco said. “Given that physicians are some of the most educated individuals in society, we were not surprised that they exhibited high rates of turnout, especially in recent elections.”
Researchers reported study limitations, including “the limited time frame and inability to validate the linkage of physician license and voting records conducted by Catalist,” they wrote.
‘Polarization of health’
As a Carnegie Fellow for 2024 to 2026, Pacheco said she plans to continue to study polarization among physicians.
“America is polarized,” she said. “Democrats and Republicans are divided on almost everything, from the political — who to vote for, what policies to support — to the mundane — what to eat, where to socialize. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that partisan polarization threatens public health. The proposed project is intended to provide a clearer understanding of how physicians are both the cause and potential solution to the political polarization of health. Studying physicians has important normative and practical value. Overt partisanship among physicians raises concerns about bias in medical care and treatment, and makes it more difficult for doctors to work together to address public health challenges.”
Future research efforts will include the examination of the extent to which physicians are polarized, the consequences of physician polarization and the potential remedies to the polarization of health, according to Pacheco.
Reference:
For more information:
Julianna Pacheco, PhD, can be reached at julianna-pacheco@uiowa.edu.
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