Poverty and Biological Risk: The Earlier "Aging" of the Poor
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: We examined age differences in levels of biological risk factors in the U.S. population by poverty status. It is not clear how socioeconomic status differentials in biological risk change with age because of mortality. METHODS: We used two nationally representative samples (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey [NHANES] III, 1988-1994, and NHANES, 1999-2004) with data for more than 12,000 people aged 20 and older in each data set to examine biological risk for persons in families with incomes below and close to poverty level and those with higher income. We examined how mortality and life expectancy in the earlier sample are related to poverty status and biological risk. We examined life table survivorship to clarify how mortality differentially removes those who are poor and those with high biological risk from the population. RESULTS: Differences in biological risk by poverty status are larger before old age and become insignificant at older ages. Life expectancy at age 20 differs markedly by biological risk and poverty status. CONCLUSIONS: Population differentials in health at older ages result from a lifetime of differences. Socioeconomic differences in health in old age disappear because of health and mortality differentials at earlier ages. Poorer people "age" earlier and this affects the age pattern of social differentials.
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Analyses of nationally representative U.S. NHANES data for adults aged 20 and over documented SES gradients in allostatic load and faster age-specific accumulation associated with poverty.
“Analyses of nationally representative U.S. data for adults aged 20 and over from the National Health & Nutrition Survey (NHANES) have also documented these same SES gradients in AL [188][189][190] and the faster age-specific accumulation associated with poverty.191”
From Socio‐economic differentials in peripheral biology: Cumulative allostatic load (2010) · cites this paper as [191]
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“However, adolescent and young-adult lifestyles and health behaviors likely influence aging (Crimmins et al., 2009) and should also be measured as sources of heterogeneity in clinical trials.”
Background
- Authors
- Crimmins, E. M., Kim, J. K., & Seeman, T. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Venue
- The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-02-01
- Volume
- 64A
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 286-292
- ISSN
- 1079-5006 (ISSN-L)
- 1758-535X
- PMC
- PMC2655037
- OpenAlex
- W2085176599
- Cited by
- 246
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 14.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- The Journals of Gerontology Series A (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Aging (P30 AG17265, R01AG023347, P30AG017265)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Health › Public Health and Social Inequalities
- Keywords
- poverty, biological risk factors, socioeconomic status, aging, mortality, life expectancy, life tables, NHANES
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aging, Cause of Death, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Income, Life Expectancy, Male, Middle Aged, Mortality, Nutritional Status, Poverty, Predictive Value of Tests, Reference Values, Sex Factors, Socioeconomic Factors, United States, Proportional Hazards Models, Odds Ratio, Risk Assessment, Young Adult
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