The Relationship between Ideology and COVID-19 Deaths: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know

• Published in: Brazilian political science review Vol. 16; no. 3; pp. 1 - 41
• Main Authors: Barberia, Lorena, Moreira, Natália de Paula, Carvalho, Rebeca de Jesus, Oliveira, Maria Leticia Claro, Rosa, Isabel Seelaender Costa, Zamudio, Marcela
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Rio de Janeiro Associacao Brasileira de Ciencia Politica 2022; Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política; Brazilian Political Science Association
• Subjects: Aggregate data; Bias; Bolsonaro, Jair; Confounding (Statistics); Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Disease transmission; ecological inference; Ecological research; Ideology; Infections; Local elections; Measurement; measurement error; Measurement errors; omitted variable bias; Pandemics; POLITICAL SCIENCE; Politics; Presidential elections; Prevention; Protestantism; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Social distancing; Suicides & suicide attempts; temporal dynamics; Variables; Voting; Brazil; measurement error; omitted variable bias; Ecological inference; temporal dynamics
• ISSN: 1981-3821; 1981-3821
• DOI: 10.1590/1981-3821202200030001

Several recent studies have investigated if support for Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election of 2018 is positively associated with COVID-19 infections and deaths in Brazil. In these studies, COVID-19 outcomes in 2020 and 2021 are the dependent variables, and votes for Jair Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential election (as a proxy for ideology) are the key explanatory variable. This article discusses why ecological research designs are difficult to test empirically. We discuss why correlations between vote shares and COVID-19 outcomes using aggregate data can produce biased inferences, and we specifically focus on measurement error, aggregation bias, and spatial and temporal dynamics.