29-year study: Poverty hurts mind, body (fwd)

P. Myers (mpwr@u.washington.edu)
Sun, 4 Jan 1998 17:05:37 -0800 (PST) 

hope this hasn't been posted before...Pat M...not only immoral as hell,
but not very cost effective either, eh?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 0:02:50 PST
From: UPI <C-upi@clari.net>
Newsgroups: clari.tw.health.misc, clari.news.issues.poverty, clari.tw.top,
    clari.usa.top, clari.tw, clari.tw.misc, clari.tw.health,
    clari.news.front_page, clari.news.issues, clari.news.issues.misc
Subject: 29-year study: Poverty hurts mind, body

  	  				 
	ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Health researchers who studied 1,  
000 California adults for 29 years have found physical and mental 
conditions worsen as people spend more years in poverty. 
	The study of Almeda County, Calif., residents found those who were  
poor at least three of the 29 years were up to four times more likely to 
develop physical and cognitive problems than people living above the 
poverty line. 
	The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan  
and the Public Health Institute of Berkeley, Calif. The results appear 
today in the New England Journal of Medicine. 
	Lead researcher and UM epidemiologist John Lynch says the study found  
``a strong dose-response relationship'' between the number of years in 
poverty and the development of health problems. 
	Men and women were included in the study. Each person's economic  
situation was reviewed for the years 1965, '74 and '83, and compared 
with their health in 1994. 
	People who were poor in two of those years were 2.28 times more  
likely than the never-poor to have some kind of mental dysfunction, 1.85 
times more likely to have a physical impairment, and 1.72 times more 
likely to suffer depression. 
	For those poor in all three benchmark years, the chance of mental  
trouble was 4.6 times higher than for the never-poor. Physical ailments 
were 3.79 times more likely for the three-year group, and depression was 
3.24 times more common. 
	Due to the increase in managed health care and a widening income gap  
in the United States, Lynch says the findings have ``important 
implications for public health, health care and economic policy.''