Family Income and the Health of Children: The Poor Get Sicker and Sicker

If there was any question whether income and education affect health outcomes...well, there isn't one now.  Or at least there shouldn't be, after the hallmark study "Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient" by Case et al.

She and her team of researchers found:

Immediately apparent in the left panel of Figure 3.1 (graph shown below) is the inverse relationship between family income and children’s health status for children of all ages. The correlation becomes progressively more negative with age—a phenomenon that holds throughout childhood and adulthood (note the change in scale between the panels). This steepening of the gradient with age is observed until roughly age 65, a result consistent with the findings of other researchers. The results for the PSID [Panel Study of Income Dynamics] are similar to those for the NHIS [National Health Interview Survey].

...on average, children’s health becomes poorer with age and...the differences in the health of wealthier and poorer children become more pronounced with age. 

Family income is not only a strong predictor of a child's health status at any given age, but it also seems to determine whether children face negative health outcomes that increase in severity as they age.

Being poor means that as children grow older, not only do they experience higher percentages of worse health outcomes, but their health status worsen over time--meaning the health gap between wealthier and poorer children only grows over time.

Family income really determines a child's health from beginning to end.  Income's protective power over children's health cannot be underestimated.

As Case et al conclude:

...income is itself protective of children’s health, or is correlated with things that are protective of children’s health. Perhaps both.

But what about parental education?  That has to have some positive effect on children's health outcomes, considering that education tends to lead to higher incomes, right?

The addition of parents’ educational attainment to the set of controls has a large effect on the estimated income coefficients, reducing them by roughly a third for all ages relative to results using Controls 1. However, the gradients remain large and highly significant. Even with controls for parents’ educations, a doubling of household income is associated with an increase in the probability that a child is in excellent or very good health of 4.0 percent (for ages 0-3), 4.9 percent (ages 4-8), 5.9 percent (ages 9-12) and 7.2 percent (ages 13-17).

... 

Although adding controls for education does not eliminate the effects of income, the coefficients on parents’ educations are large and significant. Children living with a mother with a high school degree are reported to be in better health than those whose mothers have not finished high school (the omitted category here). Children whose mothers have more than a high school degree are reported to be in even better health. A similar pattern is seen with respect to fathers’educations.

So while parental education does improve the health of children, income still dominates when it comes to improving a child's health outcomes.

(Click to enlarge the graphs!)

I have more to expand upon.  The paper also covers children and chronic conditions.