SelfhelpMagazine

by John Lynch, Ph.D., M.P.H., George Kaplan, Ph.D., and Sarah Shema

Adult health behaviors are influenced by a person's poverty (socioeconomic status) from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. "Poverty in childhood has long-term negative health effects," said epidemiologist John Lynch, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University of Michigan.

The more times a person experienced episodes of economic hardship, the greater their risk for developing serious difficulties with physical, psychological and cognitive functioning, according to a 29-year study of 1,000 adults. This study, conducted by Dr. Lynch, George Kaplan, Ph.D., and Sarah Shema of the University of Michigan, examined adults from Alameda County, California who were classified according to the number of times they experienced economic hardship.

The more times people were in economic hardship, the worse their health and functioning was at the time of this study. Compared with men and women who never experienced any economic hardship, those who had incomes less than 200 percent of the poverty line paid the consequences.

In the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study of 2,682 middle-aged men from Finland, which looked at income, health behaviors and cardiovascular disease, Dr. Lynch found that low socioeconomic status led to poor health behaviors which increased the risk for disease.

But future employment patterns can make a difference in a person's health. "However, those who were born into poor families but who completed their high school education and went on to find white-collar employment had better health behaviors. They did not smoke or drink as much as someone from a poor background who did not complete high school and went on to find employment in manual blue-collar occupations," said Dr. Lynch.

This information released from the American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC.