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

Behavior

May 28, 2020

Finding child care is difficult for any working parent. It is an even bigger challenge when the child has a disabling condition.

About 1.2 million children under the age of six in the United States are disabled. A new study suggests that federal child care programs may be helping to keep their mothers employed either by meeting their need for care through programs like Head Start or by subsidizing their child care expenses. These supports are particularly important to low-income, single mothers in precarious financial situations.

Preschool children with disabilities were actually more likely to have regular care – at least 10 hours per week – than children without disabilities. And although disabled children’s care arrangements were more likely to be part-time – as was their mother’s employment – they had higher rates of enrollment in child care centers, rather than being in a relative’s care. In the best situations, the centers provide the specialized care these children need.

Their child care costs were also significantly lower, perhaps due to the federal subsidies. For example, families of four-year-olds with disabilities spend less, on average, than the families of children without disabilities, according to research for the Retirement and Disability Research Consortium.

Mothers who stay home to care for infants usually start migrating back to work when the children become toddlers or are approaching kindergarten age.

The researchers gauged the effectiveness of the federal child care programs for disabled preschoolers by comparing their mothers’ employment patterns with other working mothers. The analysis, based on data from U.S. Department of Education interviews with parents, found that both groups had similar changes in their work behavior during these challenging early years.

Federal child care policies, the researchers concluded, “may be adequately supporting employment for parents of children with disabilities.” …Learn More