The distributional effects of some proposed Social Security law changes (for example, an increase in Social Security’s early entitlement age (EEA)) are at least partially dependent on the distribution of health and mortality risk throughout the fully insured Social Security–covered worker population. To evaluate these types of proposals, retirement policy analysts typically tabulate the percent...

BACKGROUND Chronic kidney disease (CKD) poses a financial burden on patients and their households. This descriptive study measures the prevalence of economic hardship and out-of-pocket costs in an Australian CKD population. METHODS A cross-sectional study of patients receiving care for CKD (stage III-V) in Western Sydney, Australia using a structured questionnaire. Data collection occurred be...

and participants from the Fragile Families Working Group for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We are also thankful for helpful feedback we received at the Association of Public Policy and Management Fall 2010 Conference. 2 Abstract Research suggests that children from low-income families are more likely to exhibit behavioral problems than children from wealthier families and th...

BACKGROUND Financial risk protection and equity are major components of universal health coverage (UHC), which is defined as ensuring access to health services for all citizens without any undue financial burden. We investigated progress towards UHC financial risk indicators and assessed variability of inequalities in financial risk protection indicators by wealth quintile. We further examined ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Stroke is associated with severe economic consequences. This is the first study to investigate in younger survivors the household economic burden of stroke. METHODS A multicenter, 3-year prospective cohort study was conducted of younger (18-65 years) survivors in Australia. Pre- and poststroke patterns of income and hardship were evaluated and multivariable logistic reg...

This article uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine whether family instability is associated with changes in perceived social support, material hardship, maternal depression, and parenting stress among mothers of young children. In addition to accounting for the number of transitions that a mother experiences during the first five years of her child's life, we ...

This study examined whether middle-aged adults exposed to poverty in childhood or current financial hardship have detectable brain differences from those who have not experienced such adversity. Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was conducted as one aspect of the Personality and Total Health (PATH) through life study: a large longitudinal community survey measuring the health and well...

Previous studies have identified an association between socioeconomic status and sleep health. While some research has studied this association among sexual minority groups, including men who have sex with men (MSM), they exclusively focused on US-based populations. The interplay between the two in shaping sleep health has not been previously examined on populations residing outside the US. Thi...

BACKGROUND Neighborhood-level characteristics such as economic hardship and the retail food environment are assumed to be correlated and to influence consumers' dietary behavior and health status, but few studies have investigated these different relationships comprehensively in a single study. This work aims to investigate the association between neighborhood-level economic hardship, the retai...