Poverty and Health
Andrew D. Racine MD, PhD1
1 Bronx Municipal Hospital Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY
Editors: Henry M. Adam, MD.
The effect of poverty on the health of children is profound and enduring. Although the United States ranks seventh in per capita income among the world's industrial societies, at least one in five American children currently lives in a family whose income is below the federal poverty level. The extent to which material deprivation of this magnitude harms these children can be measured through a variety of instruments, including vital statistics, population surveys based on parental report, and health examination surveys.
Wise and Meyers provided a recent overview of the relationship between poverty and child health. They characterized a dual mechanism by which poverty may increase the risk of ill health among children: It can increase the probability of adverse events occurring and it can augment the impact that these events have on the children to whom they occur.
