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The polarization of politics and public opinion and their effects on racial inequality in COVID mortality.
Lo, Adeline; Pifarré I Arolas, Héctor; Renshon, Jonathan; Liang, Siyu.
  • Lo A; Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
  • Pifarré I Arolas H; La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
  • Renshon J; Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
  • Liang S; Department of Political Science, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
PLoS One ; 17(9): e0274580, 2022.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2029796
ABSTRACT
Evidence from the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. indicated that the virus had vastly different effects across races, with black Americans faring worse on dimensions including illness, hospitalization and death. New data suggests that our understanding of the pandemic's racial inequities must be revised given the closing of the gap between black and white COVID-related mortality. Initial explanations for inequality in COVID-related outcomes concentrated on static factors-e.g., geography, urbanicity, segregation or age-structures-that are insufficient on their own to explain observed time-varying patterns in inequality. Drawing from a literature suggesting the relevance of political factors in explaining pandemic outcomes, we highlight the importance of political polarization-the partisan divide in pandemic-related policies and beliefs-that varies over time and across geographic units. Specifically, we investigate the role of polarization through two political factors, public opinion and state-level public health policies, using fine-grained data on disparities in public concern over COVID and in state containment/health policies to understand the changing pattern of inequality in mortality. We show that (1) apparent decreases in inequality are driven by increasing total deaths-mostly among white Americans-rather than decreasing mortality among black Americans (2) containment policies are associated with decreasing inequality, likely resulting from lower relative mortality among Blacks (3) as the partisan disparity in Americans who were "unconcerned" about COVID increased, racial inequality in COVID mortality decreased, generating the appearance of greater equality consistent with a "race to the bottom'' explanation as overall deaths increased and substantively swamping the effects of containment policies.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Public Opinion / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Randomized controlled trials Limits: Humans Country/Region as subject: North America Language: English Journal: PLoS One Journal subject: Science / Medicine Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: Journal.pone.0274580

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Public Opinion / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Randomized controlled trials Limits: Humans Country/Region as subject: North America Language: English Journal: PLoS One Journal subject: Science / Medicine Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: Journal.pone.0274580