April 21, 2022

The connection between Americans’ socioeconomic status (SES) and their health was established long ago and the evidence keeps piling up.

Less-educated, lower-income workers suffer more medical conditions ranging from arthritis to obesity and diabetes. And the increase in life expectancy for less-educated 50-year-olds was, in most cases, roughly 40 percent of the gains for people with higher socioeconomic status between 2006 and 2018.

More recently researchers have connected SES and mental health. The foundations are laid in childhood. In one study, the children and teenagers of parents with more financial stresses – job losses, large debts, divorce, or serious illness – have worse mental health. And COVID has only aggravated the nation’s mental health crisis.

In a new book, Dr. Thomas Insel, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is concerned about the impact of inequality.

Mental health in disadvantaged communities “is worse because of the world outside of health care. It’s our housing crisis, our poverty crisis, our racial crisis, our increasing social disparities that weigh heaviest on those in need,” he writes in “Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health.” …Learn More