Weiss Max, Zoorob Michael
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 Jul;281:114087. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114087. Epub 2021 Jun 2.
When and how do politicians talk about public health crises? Using evidence from the opioid crisis in the United States, this paper assembles and analyzes novel data on Congressional statements to explore the conditions under which politicians (1) issue public statements about opioids and (2) frame the opioid crisis as a predominantly public health or law enforcement problem. We examined 3.8 million Congressional floor speeches and 111,000 public statements to identify (1) floor speeches about drug crises in the 97th to 114th Congresses (1981-2017) and (2) public statements about the opioid crisis in the 116th Congress (2019-2020). Moderate ideology, women, greater overdose deaths, and larger white populations are associated with significantly higher frequencies of opioid statements. Using a dictionary-based text analysis approach, we find that ideologically liberal and African American legislators are more likely to use public health framing, while ideologically conservative members are more likely to use law enforcement framing and refer to national borders or foreign countries in opioid statements. Democrats/liberals more often referenced medication treatment for opioids. These findings imply two broader conclusions about the nature of political discourse in public health crises. First, that political extremists are least likely to talk about opioids suggests that increasing partisan polarization may result in less discussion, emphasis, and expertise in public health issues. Second, the tenor of discourse about opioids and other public health crises is likely to change with partisan electoral waves, potentially hindering long term planning of public health capacity.
政治家们何时以及如何谈论公共卫生危机？本文以美国阿片类药物危机的证据为依据，收集并分析了关于国会声明的新数据，以探究政治家在何种情况下：（1）发表关于阿片类药物的公开声明；（2）将阿片类药物危机界定为主要是公共卫生问题还是执法问题。我们审查了380万次国会发言和11.1万份公开声明，以确定：（1）第97届至114届国会（1981 - 2017年）期间关于毒品危机的国会发言；（2）第116届国会（2019 - 2020年）期间关于阿片类药物危机的公开声明。温和的意识形态、女性、更高的过量用药死亡人数以及更多的白人人口与阿片类药物声明的显著更高频率相关。使用基于词典的文本分析方法，我们发现，在意识形态上倾向自由派的议员和非裔美国议员更有可能采用公共卫生框架，而在意识形态上保守的议员更有可能采用执法框架，并在阿片类药物声明中提及国界或外国。民主党人/自由派更常提及阿片类药物的药物治疗。这些发现暗示了关于公共卫生危机中政治话语本质的两个更广泛的结论。第一，政治极端分子最不可能谈论阿片类药物，这表明党派两极分化加剧可能导致对公共卫生问题的讨论、重视和专业知识减少。第二，关于阿片类药物和其他公共卫生危机的话语基调可能会随着党派选举浪潮而改变，这可能会阻碍公共卫生能力的长期规划。
