Financial 'buffer' appears to help preserve well-being after health setbacks
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The old saying that 'money doesn't buy happiness' may
hold true most of the time. But when a serious health problem comes along,
financial resources may really cushion the blow to a person's psyche, a new
study suggests.
The finding, made by researchers at the University of Michigan Health System
and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, stands in contrast to previous
research that showed no major differences in self-reported happiness and
well-being between wealthy people and those with modest financial assets.
Instead, the study finds that people with relatively large financial assets
before they became disabled reported substantially better well-being, and
less sadness and loneliness, after they were disabled than was reported by
people with fewer financial resources who also became disabled.
Although the difference eased a few years after disability set in, the
researchers say the finding has important implications for such things as
personal savings, retirement planning and "safety net" government programs
for the seriously ill and disabled.
The study will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science,
the flagship journal of the American Psychological Society. It's based on an
analysis of data from 478 older Americans who were interviewed regularly and
in depth for as long as nine years, before and after they suffered a health
problem that left them disabled. The data are from the Health and Retirement
Study, conducted by the U-M Institute for Social Research with funding from
the National Institute on Aging.
"Happiness and well-being may not depend on a person's financial state in
times of health, but when that health fails, as it will eventually for most
of us, money matters," says senior author Peter Ubel, M.D., a U-M professor
of internal medicine and psychology, and a staff physician at the VA Ann
Arbor Healthcare System.
"Money may not buy happiness, but it does seem to buy people out of some of
the misery that's associated with a decline in health status," says lead
author Dylan Smith, Ph.D., a research specialist at the VA Health Services
Research & Development Center and a U-M psychologist and internal medicine
research investigator.
Ubel directs, and Smith is a member of, the U-M Center for Behavioral and
Decision Sciences in Medicine. They note that research has already shown
that psychological well-being, or lack of it, can affect people's response
to medical treatment, and their ability to work or care for themselves and
their family. Other research has shown that half of personal bankruptcies
are linked to health care costs. The federal bankruptcy reforms now under
consideration in Congress do not exempt medical costs.
For the new study, the researchers focused on the data from the 478 HRS
study participants who became disabled during the years when they were
surveyed regularly, starting in 1992, and continuing until 2000.
Participants were classified as disabled if they became unable to carry out
routine tasks of daily living such as walking, getting out of bed, eating
and dressing without help.
The researchers then divided the participants into two income groups: those
with financial assets above the median level, and those below the median.
Assets in the HRS are measured by adding together home equity, savings,
stocks, bonds and other assets, and subtracting debts. The median net worth
in the study was $98,400, and 311 of the participants had assets below that
level.
The researchers then looked at how the participants had rated their overall
psychological well-being on a standardized survey, focusing on happiness,
enjoyment of life, sadness and loneliness. They looked at how that
self-reported well-being changed over time, from pre-disability to
post-disability.
The analysis showed that those whose financial assets had been above the
median before they were disabled suffered a much smaller drop in
self-reported well-being than those who had been below the median. A second
analysis confirmed that there was a relationship between a person's net
worth and the drop in their well-being after disability.
The researchers looked at data from a sub-group of people who had well-being
data on record from several years after they suffered their disability.
Although the researchers did not assess again whether the disability was
still present, or whether it had lessened, they did find that the well-being
of those with lower net worth had improved somewhat. The well-being of those
with more financial means had actually decreased slightly.
In all, Ubel says, the results should help individuals and policy makers
understand the importance of financial security in relationship to a
person's health and well-being. Since disability of some form or another
strikes a large percentage of Americans, and increases as people grow older,
the issue will only become more important as the baby boom generation ages.
"Our study suggests that it is better to save for a rainy day, than to spend
your savings on a house where it doesn't rain," he says.
Ubel and Smith also note that their study does not demonstrate directly that
having more money and more assets shields a person from a psychological
downfall when disability strikes. There could be some psychological factors
associated with a person's ability to accumulate wealth that could also make
them more resilient when they become disabled.
But in all, they say, the research is the first time that financial assets
have shown to be a possible buffer for a person's well-being after a decline
in health.
In addition to Ubel and Smith, the study team included U-M biostatistician
and research associate Mohammed Kabeto, M.S., and Kenneth Langa, M.D.,
Ph.D., an assistant professor of general medicine at the U-M Medical School,
a research investigator at the Ann Arbor VA, and a faculty associate at the
Institute for Social Research.
###
The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development. The Health and Retirement Study is funded by the National
Institute on Aging. Smith is supported by a VA career development award,
Ubel by a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and
Langa by an NIA Career Development Award and a Paul Beeson Physician Faculty
Scholar Award.
Reference: Psychological Science, forthcoming (accepted for publication)
------------------------------------------------------------ Posted from: Spirit of 1848 listserv ------------------------------------------------------------ We welcome posting on social justice & public health that provide:
a) information (e.g. about conferences or job announcements or publications
relevant to and making explicit links between social justice & public
health),
and
b) substantive queries or comments directly addressing issues relevant to
and
making explicit links between social justice and public health.
If your posting is only about social justice/political issues, or only about
public health issues, and does not explicitly connect issues of social justice & public health, please do not post it on this listserve.
Please do NOT post petitions containing text suggesting (or requesting) that
signatures should be sent to the Spirit of 1848 bulletin board, as the
signatures & replies clog up the works. Instead, if you have a petition you
want to circulate, please post a notice about the petition (which can
include
its text) and provide YOUR email address so people can email you with their
signature and/or get a copy of the petition that is to be signed (or else
provide the email address and/or website where people should send their
signature and/or get a copy of the petition). Also, to limit e-mail volume,
please do not send posts directed toward a single individual to the list at
large. Instead of hitting 'reply', cut and paste the person's address into
the
'to' field, and send your message directly to the her/him.
Community email addresses: Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web page: www.progressivehn.org
To subscribe or un-subscribe send an e-mail to the address specified above with the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" in the subject line. Yahoo! Groups Links
