Democratic and Republican physicians provide different care on politicized health issues
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Political beliefs have been shown to spill over into nonpolitical domains, such as consumer spending, choice of romantic partner, and job hiring. Our evidence suggests that political beliefs predict the professional decisions of primary care physicians. On politicized health issues, like marijuana and abortion, physicians' partisan identity is highly correlated with their treatment decisions. Because physicians regularly interact with patients on politically sensitive health issues and because the medical profession is increasingly politicized (e.g., state governments are regulating politicized aspects of medicine), it is necessary to understand how doctors’ own political worldviews may impact their actions in the medical examination room.
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Republican and Democratic physicians give different advice to patients on politicized health issues such as abortion, but not on apolitical health topics.
“In medicine, Hersh & Goldenberg (2016) find that Republican and Democratic physicians give different advice to patients on politicized health issues such as abortion, but not on apolitical health topics.”
From The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States (2019) · cites this paper as Hersh & Goldenberg (2016)
The paper reports that Democratic and Republican primary care physicians recommended different treatment plans in survey vignettes about politicized issues, including abortion, but not in the other vignettes (opening summary). The claim overstates the finding as advice actually given to patients; the study measured physicians’ responses to hypothetical cases, not observed patient encounters. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredPreferences against cross-party marriage are substantively larger than apolitical benchmarks, such as the 17-20% of people who would not want their child marrying a fan of an opposing baseball team.
“And these preferences appear substantively larger than apolitical benchmarks, such as the 17-20% of people who would not want their child marrying a fan of an opposing baseball team (Hersh 2016).”
From The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States (2019) · cites this paper as Hersh 2016
The introduction says political ideology affects evaluations of potential romantic partners, but it gives no cross-party marriage rate or comparison with an apolitical benchmark. Searches for the baseball-team marriage question and the 17–20% figure found no passage addressing them in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredA 2016 study revealed that patients with attitudes that disregarded the physician's political views were treated differently which creates an undesirable discrepancy in patient care.
“a 2016 study [56] revealed that patients with attitudes that disregarded the physician’s political views were treated differently which creates an undesirable discrepancy in patient care.”
From Future healthcare providers and professionalism on social media: a cross-sectional study (2022) · cites this paper as [56]
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Cites
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States
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Future healthcare providers and professionalism on social media: a cross-sectional study
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- Authors
- Hersh, E. D., & Goldenberg, M. N.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hersh, Eitan D.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2016-10-03
- Volume
- 113
- Issue
- 42
- Pages
- 11811-11816
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC5081578
- OpenAlex
- W2528090554
- Cited by
- 165
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 36.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Yale University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Healthcare Policy and Management
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Academic Freedom and Politics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health, Medicine and Society
- Keywords
- physician treatment decisions, cannabis, abortion, firearm storage, primary care physicians, health care variation, patient vignettes
- MeSH terms
- Clinical Decision-Making, Attitude of Health Personnel, Delivery of Health Care, Humans, Perception, Physicians, Politics, Primary Health Care, Surveys and Questionnaires, United States, Disease Management
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