Vote in 2024!

Ron Manderscheid, PhD

Adjunct Professor,

Bloomberg School of Public Health,

Johns Hopkins University

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Suzanne Dworak Peck School of Social Work.

University of Southern California

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Already this year, developments during the past four months portend that behavioral health and disability will be “on the ballot” at every level—national, state, county, and city--in the upcoming 2024 election. Thus, it will be exceptionally important for everyone impacted by any of these issues to register and vote, and to encourage others to vote in this election.

Why vote?

Voting is very powerful. Voting allows us to express a need, count an opinion, nurture a hope, and foster a personal and community vision for the future. It also permits us to amplify the voices of those who are ill, disabled, older, or socially excluded. And through our vote, we can create a voice for those who currently have no voice—children, immigrants, and those with severe communication impairments. Thus, by voting, each of us not only can speak for ourselves, but we also can support the voices of many, many others.

Voting is good for our health and good for our community’s health.

Voting also can benefit us personally. Recent research shows that voting promotes good personal wellbeing and good social wellbeing. It is a positive social determinant of health.

In recognition of these salutary effects, the federal Healthy People 2030 initiative includes a Social Determinants of Health objective on voting, SDOH07: Increase the proportion of voting-age citizens who vote. The baseline measure is 53.4% set in 2018. The target for 2030 is 58.4%. We can and must exceed this target in the 2024 election.

What voter initiatives are underway in healthcare?

Underscoring the urgent need for voter participation this year, three health care organization, Civic Health Alliance (www.civichealthalliance.org ), Healthy Democracy Healthy People (www.healthydemocracyhealthypeople.org ) and Vot-ER (www.vot-ER.org ) have undertaken special voter initiatives in different health care settings. These initiatives seek to enroll health care providers, their clients, and their families as voters, and to encourage voting in the fall election.

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Further, the three organizations also are collaborating on an innovative voting initiative called “Thrive Through Civic Health: We Will Vote” (www.healthydemocracyhealthypeople.org/wwv/ ). This new initiative “is a coordinated strategic action…designed to improve population health by strengthening civic and voter participation across the health sector…. (It) serves as an invitation to partner with public health, health care, philanthropy, non-profit, and community organizations to strengthen voter participation commitments.”? The collaborative encourages all organizations to endorse this new effort. Please offer your organization’s support.

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What voter initiatives are underway in behavioral healthcare and disability?

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Earlier this year, I reached out to several key behavioral healthcare and disability organizations. They included Mental Health America, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Bazelon Center, College for Behavioral Healthcare Leadership, Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice, American Public Health Association Mental Health Section, the Coalition for Whole Health, the Alliance for Rights and Recovery, the National Coalition on Accessible Voting, and several related organizations also representing the disability community. All entities expressed a strong interest in improving voter participation in 2024.

Two already have initiatives underway. NAMI has a voter participation initiative (https://www.nami.org/About-NAMI/NAMI-News/2024/NAMI-Re-Launches-Vote4MentalHealth-Campaign-to-Get-Out-the-Vote-during-the-2024-Elections ). Mental Health America has developed a voter guide and resources? (https://mhanational.org/2024-voter-guide?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=27f57038-4d5b-407d-b238-685a15ecd7fd ).?

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Most of these organizations also expressed interest in participating in a loosely configured behavioral healthcare and disability collaborative to promote voter registration and voting in 2024. This collaborative will not build any new infrastructure, but rather share and amplify efforts and events of participating entities, such as voter registration strategies and materials, webinars and podcasts, as well as keep all participants updated. I also plan to share these materials through future blogs.

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The goal of the collaborative is to encourage registration and voting by behavioral healthcare and disability managers, providers, and staff, persons served, and others community friends. To put this into perspective, more than 66 million US adults are affected directly by behavioral health conditions today, and more than 35 million additional adults have other disabilities. They are served by more than 1 million providers of all types. If we also add paraprofessional providers, such as peers, and community members who support those with these conditions, the potential voter population easily exceeds 125 million persons, almost half of the adult US population.

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What can you do?

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If you are a consumer, encourage and help other local consumers and community friends to register and vote.

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If you are a professional or paraprofessional provider, encourage and help your colleagues and friends to vote.

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If you are a program manager, develop a voter registration and voting initiative for your staff, consumers, and program friends.

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If you are a community friend of behavioral healthcare or disability, encourage and help other community members to register and vote.

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And, most important, register and vote yourself!

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? 2024 R.W. Manderscheid