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Improving the Epidemiological Understanding of the Dynamic Relationship Between Life Course Financial Well-Being and Health

  • Social Epidemiology (A Aiello, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Epidemiology Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 04 April 2019

This article has been updated

Abstract

Purpose of Review

We posit that there are many different measures of financial well-being such as income, debt, assets, and wealth, which may have different consequences for health at different times in the life course. We frame our discussion of financial well-being within existing theories and mechanisms by which financial well-being may influence health.

Recent Findings

We contrast the influences of “snap shot” or one point in time measures of financial well-being with those of repeated measures of financial well-being across the life course. Reviewing recent research, we show the importance of measures apart from income in understanding how financial well-being influences health.

Summary

We argue that because financial well-being is multidimensional, the salient effect of financial well-being on health may not be captured by only focusing on singular aspects of this construct. We believe that there is an impetus on epidemiologists to embrace the multidimensionality of financial well-being, which will, in turn, improve public health practice and inform health policy in a more consequentialist manner.

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Change history

  • 04 April 2019

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of the third author should be presented as “First name: Adina” “Last name: Zeki Al Hazzouri” and should be cited as Zeki Al Hazzouri, A.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, USA

    Samuel L. Swift & Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri

  2. Division of Epidemiology and Populations Health Sciences, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA

    Samuel L. Swift

  3. Jay Weiss Institute for Health Equity, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami, Miami, USA

    Zinzi Bailey

Authors
  1. Samuel L. Swift
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  2. Zinzi Bailey
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  3. Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri
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Correspondence to Samuel L. Swift.

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Swift, S.L., Bailey, Z. & Al Hazzouri, A.Z. Improving the Epidemiological Understanding of the Dynamic Relationship Between Life Course Financial Well-Being and Health. Curr Epidemiol Rep 6, 28–33 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40471-019-0181-4

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