Political Representation and Infant Mortality Rates

In the United States, local, state, and federal governments are divided over how to address issues in the health care system. Over the years, Republican-controlled states have usually taken a conservative approach when addressing social policy issues compared to their Democratic counterparts. Although cross-country research finds that policies aimed at reducing social inequalities have a statistically significant effect on health outcomes, there has been no such study to see if these findings also apply to the U.S. The Capstone team initiated a study using state-level panel data from 1990-2010 to determine if there is a statistically significant relationship between political representation and infant mortality rates. Preliminary results suggested that more Democratic representation in the upper or lower house of a bicameral state legislature is correlated with a decrease in infant mortality rates.