Poverty Does Make Us Sick

Abstract

This study evaluates the direct causal effects of household wealth on health. We discuss several specific mechanisms that that could relate poverty with worse health and hypothesize that poverty will undermine population health. This hypothesis was tested based on data drawn from a recent cross-country survey in 12 post-Soviet countries and Mongolia using classic regression (OLS) and instrumental variable 2SLS regressions. The results indicate that poverty does indeed lead to worsening health. This negative effect of poverty on health remains unchanged after controlling for a wide range of individual characteristics, healthcare performance indicators, trust in individuals, government, parliament, and political parties, as well as country-level unobserved characteristics. Using an instrumental variable increases our confidence in being able to isolate the effects of poverty on health status and confirms that our results are not due to endogeneity. In addition, the strong negative effect of poverty on health remains robust to the use of a set of country-level aggregated indicators (e.g. GDP and Gini) instead of country dummies, the employment of a subjective self-assessment indicator of poverty instead of an objective one, and an alternative conceptualization of health status as a binomial variable (for bad and very bad health) instead of a continuous one.

Assessing the relationship between measures of healthcare access and functional limitations among individuals with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

“…In our study, individuals with COPD who were not able to afford healthcare services were more likely to have functional limitations, with poverty increasing the odds by two-folds. Earlier studies have reported that poverty worsens the odds of being able to afford healthcare services 36 .…”

“…Our study found that individuals with COPD who had delayed appointments were more likely to have functional limitations, with poverty generating seven-fold increased odds of functional limitation. Indeed, delayed care from long appointment times, a conceptual measure of delayed access to care, results in poor health outcome 40 , which further leads to an increased cost of care and poverty 14,36 . Therefore, it can be conceptualized that individuals with COPD fall into a virtual loop characterized by delayed access to care, increased cost of care, worsening poverty, and worsening health outcomes, ultimately culminating in mortality 14 .…”

“…In our study, individuals with COPD who were not able to afford healthcare services were more likely to have functional limitations, with poverty increasing the odds by two-folds. Earlier studies have reported that poverty worsens the odds of being able to afford healthcare services 36 . With the cost of managing COPD in the United States one of the highest in the world 37,38 , individuals with COPD are more likely to use the health facility to treat other illness rather than acute exacerbations of COPD 14 .…”

Health and Social Inequalities in Women Living in Disadvantaged Conditions: A Focus on Gynecologic and Obstetric Health and Intimate Partner Violence

“…1,2 Women have higher chances to get sick and consume more drugs, and are socially disadvantaged compared to men for physical and psychological violence, higher unemployment rates, and economic freedom. [1][2][3][4] In the United States, women's poverty rates are substantially above the rates for men, with a poverty rate of 14.5% for women and 11% for men, and nearly 18 million women living in poverty. 5,6 Similar rates have been reported in Europe.…”

Gender differences in informal payments for healthcare: evidence from 34 African countries

“…When faced with the prospect of a costly informal payment, impoverished people may forego healthcare altogether (Khodamoradi et al, 2018) (Dasgupta et al, 2015). Second, they undermine the health system goal of financial protection, increasing the risk of catastrophic expenditure (Habibov, Auchynnikava and Luo, 2019). Third, informal payments can cause substantial inefficiencies in healthcare planning and delivery.…”