Republican Mental Health Tops Democrats?

Republicans are reported "significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent," according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, contrasted to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education. The poll was based on an aggregate survey of more than 4,000 interviews conducted since 2004. Democrats are slightly less likely to report excellent mental health than are independents, the big distinctions in these data are the differences between Republicans and everyone else. A recent Gallup report reviewed these mental health data more generally, and found that men, those with higher incomes, those with higher education levels, and whites are more likely than others to report excellent mental health.Party identification appears to have an independent effect on mental health even when each of these is controlled for. In almost all cases, Republicans are more likely to report excellent mental health across the various categories. Republicans are significantly more likely to report excellent mental health than are independents or Democrats among those making less than $50,000 a year, and among those making at least $50,000 a year. Republicans are also more likely than independents and Democrats to report excellent mental health within all four categories of educational attainment. Gallup also conducted a separate multivariate analysis that looked at the impact of a list of variables -- including party identification -- on self-reported mental health. This analysis showed that even when the impact of these other variables is controlled for statistically, there is an independent and highly significant impact of being a Republican on mental health.Because Republicans have on average higher incomes than independents or Democrats, part of the explanation for the relationship between being a Republican and having better mental health is a result of this underlying factor. But the key finding of the analyses presented here is that being a Republican appears to have an independent relationship on positive mental health above and beyond what can be explained by these types of demographic and lifestyle variables. Results are based on an aggregated sample of telephone interviews with 4,014 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted in November 2004, November 2005, November 2006, and November 2007. For results based on the total aggregated sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points. The margin of error for smaller subsamples reported in this analysis will be larger.