“What Does Voting Have To Do With My Health?”

Right in the middle of the Medical Assistance application (also known as Medicaid), a prompt appears that asks applicants if they are registered to vote. If they answer no, applicants have an opportunity to register right then and there.This prompt struck me as odd the first couple of times I ran across it while applying for insurance with clients. Evidently I was not the only one! Early in my service term when I asked a client if they wanted to register, they replied: “what does voting have to do with my health?” I don’t quite remember how I responded, but I imagine I fumbled and gave a generic (yet valid!) response of “it’s important to vote!” However, since then, I’ve come to understand how civic engagement promotes an individual’s and a community’s health.

Civic engagement serves as one of NHC’s core competencies, values and skills that the program seeks to instill within its members. Defined as “the ways in which citizens participate in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or to help shape the community’s future,” civic engagement includes activities such as community service, activism and voting[1]. During this service term my fellow Americorps members and I have had the opportunity to participate civically throughout Philadelphia: we’ve served Thanksgiving dinner to recent refugee communities, we’ve attended town-hall meetings to discuss the future of a neighborhood affected by gentrification and we’ve participated in meaningful dialogue on how we can be part of the fight to end new cases of HIV in the city. These opportunities have enabled us to engage with the Philadelphia community, and personally have kept me afloat during periods of burnout. On those inevitable days where I feel like I’m not making a positive impact and I try in vain to push back the notion in my mind that I’m just a transplant from North Carolina who has nothing to offer this city, the experiences above remind me that I am invested and connected to this community. I’ve witnessed how civic engagement has positively impacted my sense of worth and promoted my mental-well being during my service term.

So, can the same be said for the clients I help apply for insurance?  Studies have shown that civic engagement, particularly voting, promotes positive mental health and in turn good physical health [2]. When individuals work to actively improve their communities through civic engagement whether it be protesting oppressive policies or voting for their preferred elected officials, individuals and entire communities feel empowered.This is the link between civic engagement and health: empowerment. Perhaps then, it makes absolute sense that civic engagement is weaved into an application that ultimately seeks to improve an individual’s health.

[1] http://jtd.sagepub.com/content/3/3/236.abstract
[2]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/06/voting-good-for-health-election...
 

This blog post was written by NHC Philadelphia member Dianne Uwayo.
Dianne serves as a Health & Benefits Advocate at Family Practice & Counseling Network: Abbottsford Falls.