Studies: Trump may be making Latinos sick
President Donald Trump’s presidency may be making some people sick, a growing number of studies suggest. Researchers have begun to identify correlations between Trump’s election and worsening cardiovascular health, sleep problems, anxiety and stress, especially among Latinos in the United States.
A study published Friday used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to show an increased risk among Latina women of having babies born prematurely following Trump’s election. The new study is particularly powerful, experts say, because unlike ailments such as depression or stress that can be hard to quantify, births come with hard data.
“You have a date when the baby should have been born and when it actually is. You have weight, length of stay at hospital. It’s extremely objective data,” said Kjersti Aagaard, an OB/GYN researcher at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital who was not associated with the study.
Complications such as low birth weight and premature birth have been shown to rise with the stress of natural disasters, racism and domestic violence. Friday’s study, however, is unusual in its suggestion that politics can be a risk factor for poor pregnancy outcomes.
More than two years after Trump’s election, researchers say they now have enough data to begin to analyze its consequences on American society and health. Political scientists have tried to measure Trump’s effect on partisanship and discourse. Social scientists are studying whether Trump has changed people’s feelings or predispositions about racism, incivility and bullying.
Some of the research has been inconclusive, but the evidence is growing for a possible “Trump effect” on the health of Latinos. And Trump’s intensifying rhetoric, such as telling minority members of Congress to “go back” to countries they came from, has given the scientists’ work more urgency.
“It’s not hard to imagine why there would be increased stress the past few years. The fear of raids, the deportation threats, the tweets every morning, the separation of children from parents. It’s still early, but we’ve seen enough papers at this point that suggest it’s having real life consequences on health,” said Luis Zayas, professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas at Austin.
In recent weeks alone, Zayas said several scientific journals have asked him to review studies on the psychological effects of Trump’s child separation policy. “The number of papers is just going to be increasing because there’s often a delay with this kind of work. You have to let the policy play out, collect data in the field and makes sense of it.”
Much of the research on health effects examines physical and mental symptoms linked to increased stress. Gallup polls recently documented an increase of stress, anger and worry among all Americans, which match or top the highest levels since they began tracking these negative feelings in 2006. Those who disapprove of Trump’s performance were significantly more likely to experience each of those negative emotions, the survey found.