Elections have health consequences: Depression, anxiety, and the 2020 presidential election

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - One would assume Americans feel depressed and anxious during elections, but a study and paper by University of Nevada (UNR) Associate Professor Dr. Sankar Mukhopadhyay now has the data to show this was true during the 2020 presidential election.

Data examined for the paper showed a steady rise in self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety leading up to the election and a subsequent decrease in symptoms following the end of the election season. The peak of self-reported symptoms was even higher than it was while stay-at-home orders for COVID-19 were in place nationally.

"I didn't think it'd be this big of an effect," Sankar told South Tahoe Now of what the data collected from hundreds of thousands showed about the 2020 election. "I didn't expect these results, just thought I'd look into it.

The self-reported symptoms of moderate to severe anxiety and depression increased steadily up to the presidential election and declined after the election. The anxiety and depression levels are significantly higher around the 2020 election than in April 2020, when most of the U.S. was under mandatory or advisory stay-at-home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, states the paper from UNR entitled “Elections have (health) consequences: Depression, anxiety and the 2020 presidential election.”

Sankar started watching data from the beginning of COVID-19 in March 2020, and that was used as a baseline. Then the collection of data on depression, anxiety, and stress started in April 2020.

The UNR professor used data that started with the 2020 Household Pulse Survey, collected weekly from April to July of 2020, and then bi-weekly until December of 2021.

Sankar said it was unusual for a government to collect this kind of data, but now that they have it the results have been used for the UNR report. Previous studies report evidence of increased hospitalization due to cardiovascular disease right after the 2016 election.

Data suggest that in the 2020 Presidential election cycle 2.35 million broadcast television advertisements were aired (compared to 1.03 million ad airings in the 2016 presidential election. About 65 percent of the advertisements aired before September 1st, 2020, with the remaining 35 percent pushed out in the last 64 days of campaigning before the November 4 election. Data shows that mental distress will increase as the election approaches and peaks right before the election.

Sankar's data shows it took six months for Americans to show reduced anxiety and depression after the election.

"Our results suggest that a closely fought election can increase anxiety and depression at the population level irrespective of the outcome. These results indicate that public health authorities should track mental health outcomes during future elections (especially, close presidential elections) and address this issue. One solution may be education campaigns that teach the population," according to the study.

Previously the mid-term elections had not had the effect as presidential elections, according to Sakar, but no results from the recent election have been studied yet to see if that changed in 2022.