Voting Patterns, Mortality, and Health Inequalities in England

ObjectivesTo investigate the relationship between voting patterns, mortality, health, and disability across England, replicating and extending a BMJ study from 1996. DesignObservational study using data from the Office of National Statistics and the House of Commons Library, mapped to electoral constituencies. SettingEngland, UK. ParticipantsThe mortality, health and disability data come from the English population across multiple publicly available datasets and are cross tabulated against information on voting in the 2019 and 2024 UK General Election in constituencies in England. Main Outcome MeasuresAge-standardised mortality rate (ASMR) for 2021, as well as Health and Disability metrics from the UK Census of 2021. ResultsWhen observing the proportion of vote-share for Labour at the constituency level in both elections, there was a strong, positive correlation with ASMR. In the 2019 election, this was r=0.708 for males, and r=0.653 for females. For the 2024 election, this was r=0.540 for males, and r=0.539 for females. There are also correlations between Labour vote shares and measures of health, but far less substantially for measures of disability. The strongest correlations were almost unilaterally observed against the proportion of votes cast in a constituency. A marked deviation was in the 2019 election where there was also a small, but positive correlation with voting Conservative and poor health (r=0.035) and disability (r=0.081), but not for ASMR (r=-0.489 for females, r=-0545 for males). Strong, positive correlations were also observed between all covariates and vote share for the Brexit Party (2019) and Reform UK (2024). ConclusionsHealth and mortality inequalities across England remain high, with trends largely following previous political patterning. People needing to rely on state provisions likely vote for the political party they believe will be best placed to solve health and structural issues.