ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALISON BASS THE BOSTON GLOBE
RESEARCH GROUPS ON BOTH COASTS conclude that wide differences in wealth show up in mortality rates.
The widening income gap between rich and poor Americans is hurting more than the poorest of the poor, according to two studies. The surveys found that wide disparities are accompanied by health repercussions that affect middle-income people as well.
Both studies, to be published today in the British Medical Journal, found that states with the largest gaps in income between rich and poor had the highest overall death rates, as well as the highest rates of mortality from heart disease, stroke and homicide. States with smaller disparities in income had lower death rates, the researchers found.
``Many people no longer feel they can buy into the American dream,'' said Bruce Kennedy, director of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of one of the studies. ``And research shows that increased levels of stress and hopelessness lead to poorer health.''
Kennedy said he saw good reason why large gaps in income affect the health of more than just the very poor. He said growing income inequality - a sharp trend in the United States since the early 1980s - results in a breakdown of social cohesion, increased competition for scarce resources and greater levels of stress and frustration, and those in turn lead to poorer health.
However, some economists and physicians said they were skeptical that stress from economic circumstances causes major health problems, particularly among middle-income Americans. And a correlation between income inequality and high mortality rates does not mean there is a cause-and-effect relationship, they said.
``I find it hard to believe that stress gives middle-income heads of households a higher rate of health problems,'' said John Liu, a health economist with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Kennedy argued that the finding ``shows that trickle-down economic policies don't work. The notion that a rising tide raises all boats doesn't hold if there is a substantial discrepancy in how wealth is shared. A lot of people are drowning.''
Both studies also controlled for, or took into account, other possible factors such as smoking and drinking rates, household income and household size.
``This effect on health wasn't just happening to poor people; middle-class people were affected, too,'' said George A. Kaplan, chief of the human population laboratory for the California Department of Health Services in Berkeley, lead author of the other study. ``When we accounted for income differences, there was still a strong relationship between income inequality and mortality rates.''
Kaplan and his colleagues also found that states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Kentucky, which had the largest discrepancies in income, also had the highest mortality rates across the board. In contrast, states such as New Hampshire, Vermont, Wisconsin and Utah, which had the least income disparities had the lowest mortality rates.
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