About a year ahead of the 2020 election, more than half of Americans view the presidential race as a “significant source of stress,” according to a new survey.
Fifty-six percent of Americans cited the upcoming presidential election as a major stressor, according to the annual American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America” survey released Tuesday.
That’s a jump from what the association found ahead of the 2016 election, when 52 percent of Americans reported the election as a significant source of stress.{mosads}
Other factors stressing Americans, based on the survey, are issues that have been widely reported over the last year and discussed in the 2020 election.
Mass shootings were the most common source of stress cited by Americans, with 71 percent mentioning it, according to the survey. That’s an increase from 2018 when 62 percent cited mass shootings as a source of stress in the survey.
Healthcare, a hotly debated issue in the presidential election so far, is another significant source of stress for many Americans; it was reported by 69 percent of Americans, with the cost of healthcare being the most commonly cited source of that stress, based on the survey.
Furthermore, the survey found that adults with private insurance are more likely than those with public insurance to say the cost of healthcare causes them stress; 71 percent of adults with private insurance cited the stress and just 53 percent with public did the same.
The survey also found that stress related to climate change and global warming is up from last year, from 51 percent to 56 percent.
The survey was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of the American Psychological Association between Aug. 1 and Sept. 3. It surveyed 3,617 adults in the U.S. The data is weighted by gender, race/ethnicity, education, region, household income and time spent online.