Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gollust, Sarah E.
• Haselswerdt, Jake

Titel

Introduction Health and Political Participation: Advancing the Field

Ist Teil von

• Journal of health politics, policy and law, 2019-06, Vol.44 (3), p.341-348

Ort / Verlag

Durham: Duke University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) between 2010 and 2016—and the ensuing polarized deliberations over its repeal in 2017 and ongoing efforts to undermine or thwart the law through 2018—have ushered the politics of health policy to the top of the public agenda. Analysts questioned whether new constituencies created by the law, such as young adults eligible to stay on their parents' plans until age 26, adults newly insured through Medicaid expansions, or those with access to health insurance from state and federal Marketplaces, would behave in politically important ways during the elections of 2014, 2016, and beyond. Would those who gained insurance vote to a greater degree? Would they support Democratic candidates if they perceived themselves to have benefited? How might well-documented concerns over declining US public health, such as the opioid epidemic and increasing rates of mental illness, shape electoral outcomes? How and under what conditions are health factors important influences on political behavior? While researchers on the margins of public health, medical sociology, social epidemiology, and political behavior in the United States and internationally have been examining some of these discrete questions for some time, there has been limited cohesive examination of how theories of health and political behavior intersect and add to the knowledge base of health politics in the United States. This special issue brings together established and emerging interdisciplinary scholars to advance the evidence base about how analyses of health can contribute toward new understanding of political behavior in the 21st century.