• Home

Bernd Meier

Home Unlabelled Living in a community with high income inequality is bad for your health, study says

Living in a community with high income inequality is bad for your health, study says

Written by Unknown on 7:38 AM
A study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that not only factors such as smoking and crime rate but also income inequality influenced lifespan, Margot Sanger-Katz writes for The New York Times.
This close-up of a New York Times graphic shows income inequality in Kentucky,
Tennessee and parts of surrounding states. Lighter areas have less inequality,
and darker areas have more inequality.
"It's not just the level of income in a community that matters—it's also how income is distributed," said Bridget Catlin, the co-director of the County Health Rankings and Roadmap project. "The effect of inequality was statistically significant, equivalent to a difference of about 11 days of life between high- and low-inequality places," Sanger-Katz reports. "The differences were small, but for every increment that a community became more unequal, the proportion of residents dying before the age of 75 went up."

Other research shows that income inequality affects life expectancies of citizens in countries around the world. Why exactly this happens is debatable. One idea is that though money buys better health, "It makes a bigger difference for people low on the income scale than those at the top," Sanger-Katz writes. That means a having very few poor individuals in an area will improve average health more than having very few rich individuals will reduce it.

Another theory is that areas where wealthy individuals can "buy their way out of social services may have less cohesion and investment in things like education and public health that we know affect life span," Sanger-Katz writes. Also, some research indicates that living around richer people is stressful, causing mental health problems or cardiac disease.

To measure inequality, the researchers compared incomes of individuals living in a certain area who earned the 80th percentile with the incomes of those who earned the 20th percentile. They recorded all those who died before age 75 and the age at which they died, calculating "potential life years lost." A person who died at 70 would have lost five years of potential life.

"For every one-point increase in the ratio between high and low earners in a county, there were about five years lost for every 1,000 people," Sanger-Katz writes. "That's about the same difference they observed when a community's smoking rate increased by 4 percent or its obesity rate rose by 3 percent."

Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Americans at the lower end of the income spectrum are receiving health insurance, at least in states like Kentucky that have expanded Medicaid eligibility, and researchers will track whether those provisions will reduce the effects of inequality in the coming years. (Read more)
Tweet
Newer Post Older Post

Popular Posts

  • Study of poor but healthy Appalachian counties aims to find community-based approaches to improving the region's health
    Though some people equate Appalachian areas with poverty, David Krol seeks to "shine a light" on a different picture—one that refl...
  • Heavy use of e-cigarettes may deliver big doses of formaldehyde, which can be a cause of lung cancer, study suggests
    Vapor produced by electronic cigarettes can contain a surprisingly high concentration of formaldehyde—a known carcinogen that can cause lun...
  • As part of UK campus food deal, Aramark puts up $5 million for Food Connection, vows to purchase Kentucky products
    By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News The University of Kentucky has entered a $5 million public-private partnership designed to promote ...
  • McConnell seeks 'timely and fair review' of plan for Medicare coverage of CT scans for those at high risk for lung cancer
    U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell asked Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services  Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to "give a timely and fair r...
  • Kynect private-insurance enrollment runs through Feb. 15; exchange works to get taxpayers information to prove coverage
    With the close of open enrollment coming Feb. 15, state officials are making a final push to get Kentuckians to enroll in Medicaid or buy pr...
  • Ten common myths about diabetes busted
    Kentucky ranks 17th in diabetes, and many Kentuckians are newly diagnosed every year with the disease, usually Type 2 diabetes. The diagnosi...
  • Anderson schools' lunch profit is down nearly 10 percent; officials blame new federal nutrition standards; students object to food
    Anderson County s chool officials say new federal nutrition standards are costing them money and hurting poor students because the students...
  • Senate OKs bill for review panels in medical lawsuits after lively debate between doctors, lawyers, others
    This story, which was published Thursday morning, has been updated with action in the full Senate. By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News F...
  • Medicare plans to pay for lung-cancer screening, a boon to Ky.
    The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services  plan to start paying for lung cancer screening with low-dose CT scans for people at high ris...
  • County Health Rankings look familiar, but show that some counties overcame bad factors to have encouraging outcomes
    The 2015 County Health Rankings for Kentucky, compiled by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute in collaboration with the...
Bernd Meier © . All Rights Reserved. Powered by Blogger