Political polarization.

We investigate whether a change in political leadership affects health outcomes. To do so, we exploit turnover elections that move partisan individuals into and out of alignment with the party of the President. We document that the lack of political alignment has a negative, immediate, and long-lasting effect on health. We do not find any evidence that our results can be explained by other confounding trends or by changes in economic outcomes or other economic policies. Further results suggest that political sentiments and social isolation are important potential mechanisms in this setting and that lack of political representation affects the mental health of individuals.

本研究旨在探讨政治领导层变动是否会对健康结局产生影响。为此，我们以换届选举为研究场景，追踪党派人士与总统所在政党建立或脱离政治同盟的过程。研究结果显示，政治同盟关系的缺失会对健康产生负面影响，且该影响兼具即时性与持久性。未发现任何证据表明，本研究结论可由其他混杂趋势、经济结局变动或其他经济政策变化所解释。进一步分析表明，政治态度与社会孤立是该研究场景下的重要潜在作用机制，且政治代表性缺失会影响个体的心理健康。