‘Everybody Outside of the Top Is Suffering’: How Stress Is Harming America’s Health

Instead, the researchers track "stress load," an index of certain biological markers such as blood pressure, cholesterol level, and kidney and liver function, that they say are "associated with long-term physiological strain." (View Highlight) #✂️

In many cases, health metrics for the middle class went from being in the middle of the spectrum to being more in line with those of the poor, as in the obesity rates pictured below. Schanzenbach says she found the pattern surprising. "One thing this points to is that everybody outside of the top is suffering." (View Highlight) #✂️

But they speculate that factors such as job market stress, depression and the quality of health care and diets could be causing the health of lower-income Americans to diverge from their upper-income counterparts. Lower-income Americans who have struggled economically are more likely to experience financial and psychological stress, be exposed to violence and environmental hazards, receive lower quality health care, eat lower-quality food and live in substandard housing, researchers say. Policies like food stamps or housing assistance may help improve the situation, the report says. (View Highlight) #✂️ #👻 ai highlighted