The relationship between political ideology and mortality in Poland

Introduction: The political preference of voters has been shown to be associated with their health status. We investigated the relationship between political preferences and mortality in Poland around the time of the last three general elections. Methods: We used the electoral data from the general elections held in 2001, 2005 and 2007. Indicators of political ideological preference were constructed based on the percentage of votes gathered by each party. Data on mortality, education and income level were obtained from 2002-2007 from the Polish Central Statistical Office. Pearson correlation was computed between standardised mortality ratios (SMR) and political preference. Finally, the influence of political preference on SMR was examined in a multivariate analysis controlling for socio-economic factors. Results: SMR was positively correlated with liberal political views (0.26; p<0.05) and negatively correlated with both secondary education (-0.49; p<0.05) and monthly income (-0.239; p<0.05). The correlation between SMR and conservative political views was negative, although the result did not reach statistical significance. Education and income explained more of the variation in SMR than political views. In a multivariate regression, the liberal views factor and secondary education were significantly associated with the SMR (p<0.001 for both). Conclusion: Our findings are consistent with earlier studies conducted in western countries showing a positive correlation between liberal political ideology and SMR, but differ in that an inverse relationship was found between conservative political orientation with education and income. The importance of socioeconomic and geographical factors in relation to political affiliation and health inequalities in Poland should be further explored.