Co-authors of the study are Esme Fuller-Thomson, associate professor of social work at the University of Toronto, and Jack Guralnik, M.D., chief of the Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography and Biometry Section at the National Institute on Aging.
The researchers looked at data from 335,000 respondents aged 55 and older to the Census 2000 American Community Survey. They compared poverty level status with the rate of functional limitation, defined as a long-lasting condition that substantially limited one or more basic physical activities, such as walking, reaching or lifting. They chose functional limitation as a variable over death or illness, since many chronic diseases affect functional status.
Of the respondents surveyed, 80,791 had functional limitations. Not surprisingly, the prevalence of functional limitation increased with age. Among men aged 55-64 years, 16.2 percent reported some level of functional limitation compared with 47.5 percent for those aged 85 years and over. Among women who were 55-64 years old, 17.2 percent had functional limitation compared with 57.9 percent for those 85 and over.
The researchers found the biggest differences among the younger age group, those aged 55-64. In that group, people who were living in poverty were six times more likely to report functional limitation than people in the same age group who were living at or above 700 percent of the poverty level, with very little difference between men and women.
"These findings underscore that poverty is one of the major risk factors for disability," said Fuller-Thomson.
The study authors point to a number of possible explanations for the social gradient in health. The upper class has lower rates of smoking, and may have less str
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Contact: Sarah Yang
scyang@berkeley.edu
510-643-7741
University of California - Berkeley
16-Aug-2006