Voting & Your Health
Civic engagement, which includes volunteering, voting, and contributing to your community, can benefit your health!
What is civic engagement?
It’s however you engage with your community to make it a better place to live! Civic engagement can look like:
Volunteering to clean up your neighborhood
Taking part in your local religious organization’s charity events
Becoming a member of and/or donating resources to a local group
Caring for your neighbors and other community members
Activism
And, our favorite, voting!
But how does voting improve your health?
Multiple studies have been done to assess the effects of civic engagement on adolescent health outcomes. These studies have shown that civic engagement is predictive of future optimism, increased life satisfaction, decreased depression, increased educational attainment during early adulthood, higher household income, higher personal earnings, and decreased risky health behaviors.
What does this all mean? It means that getting to your local polling station on voting day can get you on track for a happier, healthier, and wealthier life!
Young people have historically been the least likely demographic in the U.S. to vote.
Young people of color with no college experience were the least likely to vote by mail in 2016
Young people who have previously voted are more likely to be contacted by a political campaign, leaving behind new voters from political engagement
Young people without college education are less likely to vote in states that require photo ID for first-time voters, such as Maryland