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Relationship Between Low Income And Poor Health

Decent Essays

In their article Evidence on the Relationship between Low Income and Poor Health: Is the Government Doing Enough? Benzeval et al. (2000) of the Institute for Fiscal studies, they describe their findings of research they found doing a study conducted in “two British longitudinal datasets to examine the longer-term influences of income on health within a life-course perspective”. They dive into the findings of questions such as “what roles does childhood poverty play in…acquisition of health capital?” In their findings they discuss that childhood poverty is strongly related to both educational and health attainment (389). While their article does go on to explain the longitudinal studies conducted, they found that none of the studies deals with the issue of indirect selection, i.e. “the fact that income and health might be jointly determined by the same prior experiences or characteristics”. Which to be able to understand any correlation it is necessary to know the individual’s circumstances in childhood and not just their adult life. Their findings focus on the role of health status and educational attainments which they claim are key determinants of later adult health. Does attainment or not attaining (i.e. poverty) really have that big of an effect on health? In Patti Neighmond’s (NPR) article People With Low Incomes Say They Pay A Price In Poor Health she states that it all comes down to money. People whose household income is more than $75,000 a year have very

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