Geana, Mugur V.Rabb, NathanielSloman, Steven2022-01-312022-01-312021-12-16Geana, M. V., Rabb, N., & Sloman, S. (2021). Walking the party line: The growing role of political ideology in shaping health behavior in the United States. SSM - population health, 16, 100950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100950https://hdl.handle.net/1808/32475Objective To assess the extent to which political ideology affects COVID-19 preventive behaviors and related beliefs and attitudes in the U.S. Methods Two surveys, one using a convenience sample and another using a nationally representative sample, were conducted in September and November 2020, respectively. Multiple regressions compared political ideology with identified COVID-19 risk factors and demographics as well as knowledge measures. Surveys were followed by a review of the emerging COVID-19 behavioral literature (completed in January 2021) to assess the frequency of ideological effects in publicly reported data. Results In the survey data, political ideology was a significant predictor for all dependent variables in both surveys, and the strongest predictor for most of them. Out of 141 estimates from 44 selected studies, political ideology was a significant predictor of responses in 112 (79%) and showed the largest effect on COVID-19-related measures in close to half of these estimates (44%). Conclusions This study reinforces previous research that found partisan differences in engaging in behaviors with long-term health consequences by showing that these ideologically-driven differences manifest in situations where the possibility of severe illness or death is immediate and the potential societal impact is significant. The substantial implications for public health research and practice are both methodological and conceptual.© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0Determinants of healthIdeological polarizationCOVID-19 pandemicPublic healthArticle10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100950PMC8566901openAccess