The political consequences of opioid overdoses

The United States suffered a dramatic and well-documented increase in drug-related deaths from 2000 to 2018, primarily driven by prescription and non-prescription opioids, and concentrated in white and working-class areas. A growing body of research focuses on the causes, both medical and social, of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2020-08, Vol.15 (8), p.e0236815
Main Authors: Kaufman, Aaron R, Hersh, Eitan D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal attacks
Cancer
Crises
Defects
Drug overdose
Families & family life
Fatalities
Funding
Hypotheses
Identification
Medical research
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mental health
Narcotics
Opioid abuse
Opioids
Overdose
Partisanship
Patient outcomes
People and places
Political aspects
Political science
Politics
Preferences
Primaries & caucuses
Public health
Research design
Social Sciences
Voter behavior
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Summary:The United States suffered a dramatic and well-documented increase in drug-related deaths from 2000 to 2018, primarily driven by prescription and non-prescription opioids, and concentrated in white and working-class areas. A growing body of research focuses on the causes, both medical and social, of this opioid crisis, but little work as yet on its larger ramifications. Using novel public records of accidental opioid deaths linked to behavioral political outcomes, we present causal analyses showing that opioid overdoses have significant political ramifications. Those close to opioid victims vote at lower rates than those less affected by the crisis, even compared to demographically-similar friends and family of other unexpected deaths. Moreover, among those friends and family affected by opioids, Republicans are 25% more likely to defect from the party than the statewide average Republican, while Democrats are no more likely to defect; Independents are moderately more likely to register as Democrats. These results illustrate an important research design for inferring the effects of tragic events and speak to the broad social and political consequences of what is becoming the largest public health crisis in modern United States history.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0236815