Politics affects health through material and symbolic pathways. However, capturing symbolic effects is difficult because policies simultaneously alter people’s material resources and convey symbolic messages. I examine the infant health impact of Donald Trump’s 2015-2016 campaign rallies—communicative events where policies may be discussed but not implemented. To estimate a causal effect, I link data on 2015/16 presidential campaign rallies to monthly, county-level restricted U.S. birth records, and employ the timing of rallies across US counties as a local exogenous shock. I find that a Trump rally, but not a Hillary Clinton rally, increased low and very low birthweight among infants born to Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander mothers. The effects manifest as early as during the Republican primary period, they concentrate in the counties Trump visited and do not extend to neighboring counties. These findings suggest that political effects on health arise even prior to elections and policy implementation. This study underscores the urgent need to consider the health impacts of political rhetoric, particularly how it disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, including children from immigrant families
Overarching policy and political contexts shape health inequities. However, how the clustering of policies into ‘policy regimes’ beyond welfare impacts health, has received limited empirical attention. Since the 1980s the U.S. has expanded a penal-welfare regime involving the increasing use of prisons, courts, and police to address poverty and simultaneous retraction of welfare protections. This paper explores the population-level health consequences of people’s exposure to a penal-welfare regime that prioritizes punitive control over welfare support. It examines the association between a states’ prioritization of carceral spending over health and welfare expenditure and Black and White death in 42 U.S. states between 1980 and 2008. Using fixed-effects models and controlling for confounders, I find that U.S. states’ fiscal prioritization of carceral systems to the exclusion of health and welfare is associated with an increased number of Black and White deaths. The association between a states’ carceral prioritization and Black death is larger than its association with White death. Further, these negative consequences are concentrated in the South for both groups and in the West for White groups. My findings suggest that a penal-welfare regime that prioritizes punitive control over welfare support harms overall population health, and disproportionately the health of Black groups living in the South.
Langer P., Campaign rallies and infant health: the case of Donald Trump
Patler C., Saadi A., Langer P., The health-related experiences of detained immigrants with and without mental illness
Patler C., Langer P., Has population mental health returned to pre-pandemic levels, among and between groups by race and immigration status?
Saadi A., Patler C., Langer P., Duration in Immigration Prison as a Mechanism for Health Harms Among Detained Immigrants
Langer P., U.S. states’ prioritization of carceral spending and Black & White death
Langer P., Patler C., The impact of DACA on the payment source for delivery
Langer P., Baughman E., Transitions to adulthood among disabled native and foreign-born adults