Local partisan context and mental health

Abstract

We find that, relative to Republicans residing in more Republican neighborhoods, Republicans in neighborhoods with a higher concentration of Democratic residents report higher levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. While Democrats in general report worse mental health than Republicans, Democrats show no sensitivity to partisan context. Using a large-scale national survey and fine-grained data on residential political context, we establish that these patterns persist even when examining partisans who live in the same Zip Codes, and while controlling for other individual and geographic features. The correlation is strongest for the most strongly partisan individuals, suggesting that politics is a significant factor in the relationship. For Republicans, the size of the relationship between partisan context and mental health is comparable to or larger than the correlation between mental health reports and other contextual features of residential areas, such as neighborhood poverty or the way racial minorities respond to changes in the racial or ethnic composition of local geography.