Polarization and public health: partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Working paper (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research) and Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research)
- Author(s):
- Allcott, Hunt, author Boxell, Levi, author Conway, Jacob C., author Gentzkow, Matthew, author Thaler, Michael, author Yang, David Y., author
- Contributor(s):
- Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Stanford, CA : Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), April 2020
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- COVID-19 Physical Distancing Politics Public Health United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- We study partisan differences in Americans' response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Political leaders and media outlets on the right and left have sent divergent messages about the severity of the crisis, which could impact the extent to which Republicans and Democrats engage in social distancing and other efforts to reduce disease transmission. We develop a simple model of a pandemic response with heterogeneous agents that clarifies the causes and consequences of heterogeneous responses. We use location data from a large sample of smartphones to show that areas with more Republicans engage in less social distancing, controlling for other factors including state policies, population density, and local COVID cases and deaths. We then present new survey evidence of significant gaps between Republicans and Democrats in beliefs about personal risk and the future path of the pandemic.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (50 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101776177 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101776177