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Health-based civic engagement is a professional responsibility

Nature Medicine volume 27, pages 1661–1663 (2021)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Since the 2020 US presidential election, there has been a nationwide assault on voting rights, with 18 states enacting 30 new laws that restrict voting access, and hundreds of similar bills marching through state legislatures1. Recent restrictions draw comparisons with the literacy tests and poll taxes of the Jim Crow era. Indeed, much of this voter suppression is targeted toward Black people and Indigenous Americans and people of color, all of whom have long borne the violent burden of institutionalized racism and are survivors of extensive, punitive disparities in all areas of life. Health professionals must champion patients’ right to vote to protect health and deracinate inequitable medical practices, building on the efforts of organizations such as VotER and VoteHealth 2020.

The interdependency between voting and health, as well as the power of policy to address social determinants of health, underscore why civic-health promotion must become a professional responsibility for healthcare workers. From registering to vote to attending neighborhood town halls to engaging government representatives, civic health refers to the ability of a community to come together and address public concerns. Civic health is a powerful indicator of overall health, with lower voting rates consistently associated with poorer health; for instance, patients with chronic illnesses are less likely to vote than healthy individuals2. Civic and health engagement amplify and reciprocate one another, with longitudinal studies demonstrating bidirectional causal pathways.

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Fig. 1: The VotER healthy democracy kit.

Image taken with permission from VotER.

References

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Acknowledgements

F.C.S. received funding from National Institutes of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital Executive Committee on Research, National Institutes of Health NIDDK P30 DK040561 and L30 DK118710.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Simar Singh Bajaj

  2. Department of Emergency Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Alister Francois Martin

  3. Center for Social Justice and Health Equity, Boston, MA, USA

    Alister Francois Martin

  4. MGH Weight Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Fatima Cody Stanford

  5. Division of Endocrinology-Neuroendocrine, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Fatima Cody Stanford

  6. Division of Endocrinology, Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Fatima Cody Stanford

  7. Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Harvard (NORCH), Boston, MA, USA

    Fatima Cody Stanford

Authors
  1. Simar Singh Bajaj
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  2. Alister Francois Martin
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  3. Fatima Cody Stanford
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Contributions

S.S.B. drafted the initial manuscript. A.F.M. and F.C.S. provided mentorship and editorial support. All authors read and approved the final draft before submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fatima Cody Stanford.

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Competing interests

A.F.M. is the founder and executive director of VotER. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Bajaj, S.S., Martin, A.F. & Stanford, F.C. Health-based civic engagement is a professional responsibility. Nat Med 27, 1661–1663 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01523-2

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