This study examined associations between diagnoses with five chronic health conditions (diabetes, cancer, heart disease, asthma, and arthritis) and turnout in the 2012 US presidential election. We used cross-sectional survey data from 16 states from the 2013 and 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We estimated a logistic regression model with the main dependent variable as a survey item asking respondents if they voted. We also estimated logistic regression models stratified by race/ethnicity to assess whether the chronic health condition–turnout relationships varied within each racial/ethnic group. Results show that individuals diagnosed with diabetes were 7 percentage-points more likely to vote that those who were not. Stratified models revealed these diabetes–turnout relationships are particularly strong among those who identified as Hispanic and multiracial. Other health characteristics demonstrated consistency with previous literature, including lower self-rated health being associated with lower odds of turnout. Our research suggests an intriguing new relationship between the experience of diabetes and a higher propensity to vote and that different chronic health conditions have varying associations with the likelihood to vote, implying that some groups are more vulnerable to being underrepresented in politics.

Political pundits have argued that owning financial assets induces households to support business-friendly political parties. This column analyses how ownership of liberty bonds – mass marketed to US households during WWI – affected voting behaviour in the 1920s. Voters responded to fluctuations in the value of the bonds by punishing incumbents when their value fell, and rewarding them when bond values recovered. Although liberty bonds contributed significantly to Republican margins in the 1920s, they don’t appear to have been decisive.

Health policy researchers often evaluate the social and economic consequences of chronic illness, but rarely have they considered the implications of chronic illness on one important form of political participation: voting. However, if chronic illnesses--already unequally distributed in society--are associated with differential rates of voter turnout, then these inequalities in democratic representation could, in turn, produce further health inequity. In this study, we use data from eight states from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey to examine the associations between having diagnoses of five chronic conditions and turnout in the 2008 US presidential election. After adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and some health-related confounding factors, we find that individuals with cancer diagnoses are more likely to vote, while those with heart disease diagnoses are less likely to vote. These associations differ by race and educational status; notably, African Americans and those with lower education with cancer are even more likely to turn out to vote than whites and those with more education with cancer. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of health social movements and the role of health organizations in shaping political processes, important directions for the study of health politics.