THURSDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Not having money hurts.
Physically.
Lower-income Americans experience pain much more frequently than
those making more money, according to a study that had nearly 4,000
people keep a diary in which they scored their feelings of pain on
a scale of 0 to 6 for randomly selected 15-minute intervals.
People with household incomes below $30,000 a year reported
moderate to severe pain 20 percent of the time. Those making more
than $100,000 a year said they experienced pain less than 8 percent
of the time.
"The arrows point in both directions," said study co-author Alan
Kreuger, a professor of economics at Princeton University,
explaining the findings reported in the May 3 issue of
The Lancet."First, people with lower skills tend to do more
physically demanding labor, and that leads to pain. Secondly,
people who have a lot of pain in their lives find it hard to
work."
Education also affected pain results. People with less than a
high school degree reported twice the average pain rating through
the day as those with college degrees, the study found.
The pain study was an extension of work done in association with
Arthur Stone, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at
Stony Brook University in New York, Kreuger said. "We had been
doing work on how people used their time and how they felt about
it, and decided to add questions about pain to this national
survey," he said.
The link between pain and lower income and socioeconomic status
wasn't necessarily a surprise, Krueger said. "We sort of expected
to find that," he said. "But there was a much stronger relationship
than I expected."
The nature of someone's work had a strong influence on the
experience of pain. Blue-collar workers reported higher rates of
pain and more severe pain than those with desk jobs. And the 13
percent of people with work-related disabilities accounted for 44
percent of the time Americans spent in moderate to severe pain, the
study found.
Some other survey findings were predictable. People were more
likely to feel pain while alone, and those with pain spent almost
25 percent of their time watching television, compared to 16
percent for those experiencing less discomfort.
And people felt more pain as they grew older, with the average
pain rating increasing with the years. But there was a surprising
temporary plateau between the ages of 45 and 75, after which pain
increased, the study found.
The fact that the pain imbalance persists after the working
years indicates that "more attention should be paid to economics
and health-care services," said Juha H.O. Turunen, a professor of
social pharmacy at the University of Kuopio in Finland, who wrote
an accompanying editorial in the journal.
"Studies over the years have shown that people with less
education and low income suffer from more pain," Turunen said.
"Their work environment is different, and they are not as
interested in taking care of their health. Life habits are
associated with economic status."
One notable finding of the survey was that people responsible
for the care of others reported very high pain scores, Turunen
said. "Attention should be paid by society," he said. But, he
added, he'd avoid making recommendations about the United States
because of his unfamiliarity with America's health-care system.
More information
If you really want to read more about pain, consult the
U.S. National Library of Medicine.
