Presenting our Research for the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology at University of Washington, Seattle

The impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions and protective health behaviors, such as the use of face masks and physical distancing, on COVID-19 dynamics is well-documented, but sub-group heterogeneities in the adoption of these behaviors remains understudied. In this paper, we describe partisan differences in the adoption of protective health behaviors, and model how these differences can impact the dynamics of COVID-19.

We leverage uniquely detailed survey data on partisanship, contact rates, mask usage, and vaccination rates to provide empirical evidence of partisan differences in these health behaviors. We show that partisan differences in health behaviors are greater than racial and gender differences. We incorporate these observations into a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model framework, that explicitly incorporates partisanship, to identify the most significant mechanisms driving disease spread. We compare a population without modeled group behavior differences to one that explicitly models differing health behaviors reflecting Republican and Democrat divides. Our findings emphasize the importance of considering partisanship in modeling frameworks, for guiding public health policy and the design of effective mitigation measures, and highlight the role of partisan identification in shaping the course of future pandemics.

Watch the full presentation here.