Link between Wealth and Health

Money is said to buy the finer things in life, and maybe happiness. But how about health? According to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it appears that the answer to this is yes. For Americans between the ages of 55 and 85, those with higher incomes are healthier than their lower earning peers. While it has been proven that Americans in extreme poverty are less healthy than the rich, this new study has found a gradual reduction in the risk of functional disability as income increases, even among the mid and upper-class. The study analyzed data from the Census 2000 American Community Survey on 149 000 men and over 180,000 women 55 years old and older, from across the U.S. The researchers measured over-all health through the risk of suffering from a functional disability (defined as a chronic condition that significantly affects the person ability to perform basic physical activities, such as climbing stairs or lifting objects). Function limitations were reported by over 30,000 men and nearly 50,000 women in the survey. The study found for every age-sex group between the age of 55 and 84, a dose-dependent response between income and the risk of developing a function limitation. This means that as income increased, the risk of having a function limitation decreased, and the bigger the difference in income, the bigger the difference in risk. However, differences in access to health care, smoking, alcohol consumption, race or ethnicity did not impact the risk gradient. The relation was not significant among Americans 85 years old and older.