As millions of Americans participated in the midterm elections, first of its kind research suggests voting may offer more than civic fulfillment. The act was associated with a lower risk of premature death from any cause among thousands of older adults in Wisconsin.

Voting in the 2008 and 2012 US presidential elections was associated with roughly a 26% and 32% lower risk of premature death by 2023, respectively. The study was published in March in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.

The most comprehensive findings drew on health information and objective voting data for about 4,200 older adults. Researchers used verified records from Catalist, a national voter file database, rather than relying on participants to report whether they had voted.

“You should vote as a civic duty, but doing your civic duty actually has benefits,” said first study author Dr. Femida Handy, a professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania who focuses on philanthropy.

Handy also cautioned against treating voting as a direct route to longevity. “Understand voting as not being a magic pill that’s going to make life longer, but it raises the possibility that it provides some certain psychological benefits.”

Previous research has linked happiness, altruism, optimism, social connection, and a sense of belonging and purpose with longevity. The American Medical Association has also acknowledged voting as a social determinant of health.

Earlier US research on voting and longevity largely examined whether health status could predict later voting behavior, according to Handy. Other studies assessing whether voting predicted future health outcomes depended on voting information reported by the participants themselves.

Handy and coauthor Dr. Sara Konrath, a social psychologist, could not establish that voting caused participants to live longer. People with a lower risk of early death were also more likely to be women, to be younger, and to have greater financial and health resources.

Most participants were White and belonged to the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. That research includes more than 10,300 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957, and participants were 84 years old on average by 2023.

Among people who voted in 2008, the risk of early death was 45% lower after 5 years, 37% lower after 10 years, and 29% lower after 15 years. The association appeared whether participants voted remotely or in person, although in person voting usually had a slight advantage.

Voting in the 2012 election carried a 32% lower risk of early death. Participation in the 2004 election, however, was not associated with either lower or higher odds, and researchers said the reason for that difference was unclear.

The findings generally remained regardless of political affiliation, financial resources, and the health measures included by the researchers. Those measures covered smoking, alcohol consumption, functional limitations, vision, hearing, speech, pain, emotional well being, and memory.

Researchers did not have information about disease status, physical activity, diet, or sleep. However, Handy said the measures they did include “correlate very highly in other research with objective health outcomes.”

Dr. Benjamin A. Rein, a clinical assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, said any connection between voting and longevity would involve other factors surrounding the act. Rein was not involved in the research.

“There’s something about a will to be alive that keeps people alive,” said Rein, author of “ Why Brains Need Friends : The Neuroscience of Social Connection.” He said someone may not vote unless that person envisions a future they want to help shape.

Voting may also foster feelings of agency and inclusion. “And even voting remotely, you feel like you’re part of a group. You’re important. You have agency,” Handy said.

The study’s Wisconsin focus creates important limitations. Rein said local issues might have motivated electoral participation or been related to health, potentially factoring into the absence of an association between mortality and voting in 2004.

Its geographic and racial limits also leave unanswered how similar research might turn out among people of other races, ethnicities, and locations. Such factors can be critical to a person’s relationship with politics and whether that individual behaves prosocially.

Elections after 2012 were excluded because researchers have not yet reached the point when they could obtain mortality risk data covering as many as 15 years afterward. The authors had that follow up period for the three elections included.

Rein also noted that the political atmosphere in 2008 differed from more recent elections. He said greater division tied to politics could be unhealthy and questioned whether the same results would appear for the 2020 or 2024 elections.