In the past decade, a new line of inquiry has emerged in the study of health and political behavior with scholars aiming to examine the political consequences of health. Some studies have focused specifically on investigating the effects of health on political representation. While this line of inquiry is still nascent, important questions have already been raised regarding such effects; while Mattila et al. (2018) suggest policy-specific effects of health on representation, Pacheco and Ojeda (2020) suggest generalized effects of health on representation across policy types. This paper offers resolution to this contention by re-examining Pacheco and Ojeda (2020). Through a replication of their analysis wherein I address coding errors in their work, as well as a re-analysis of their data, I demonstrate that the generalized effects that Pacheco & Ojeda originally present are attributable to assumptions made in their analysis resulting in the use of a composite measure of representation across several policy types as their dependent variable. I show that testing for effects separately across policies yields findings that support the suggestion of Mattila et al. for policy-specific effects of health on representation, with health shaping representation on health-related policies and not for other policies. This paper thus contributes to the literature by providing a detailed examination of policy-specific effects of health on representation, as well as by resolving an existing contention on this issue, highlighting important nuances that future scholars seeking to understand the effects of health on political representation should pay attention to in their analyses.
