The effect of poverty, stress and immune function on health across the life-course

摘要 该项目将评估大规模国家反贫困计划对疾病和疾病的中期影响 成年人(45岁)和年轻人(20-26岁)的健康风险。我们建立在纵向随机的基础上 旨在评估在低收入环境下无条件现金转移计划的影响的对照试验。 关于研究人群的第四波数据将包括免疫反应、疾病风险、 和认知能力。将这些措施与前几次浪潮中的信息结合起来，包括之前的 干预期，将使我们能够规划出生物、行为和经济途径，通过这些途径 现金转移计划在生命周期的两个方面影响健康。 具体地说，我们将利用随机分配给提前进入的人所引起的外生收入变化。 评估收入贫困对免疫功能的因果影响的治疗条件，以及压力的作用 调停这段关系。我们还将评估现金转移对一系列 疾病风险指标。在我们的样本中，有一半的年轻人在 关键的青春期，使我们能够估计现金对他们的疾病风险的影响。通过提供 对成年人和年轻人的估计，我们可以观察到假设的关系是否不同 在整个生命过程中。该提案涉及国家老龄研究所的目标B，以更好地了解 个人、人际和社会因素对老龄化的影响，包括通过什么机制 这些因素发挥了它们的作用。在目标B中，该提案对目标B1作出了回应： 社会、心理、经济和行为因素会影响中老年人的健康。

Abstract This project will assess the medium-term impact of a large-scale national anti-poverty program on disease and health risk of mature adults (age 45+) and young adults (age 20-26). We build on a longitudinal randomized control trial designed to evaluate the impact of an unconditional cash transfer program in a low-income setting. A fourth wave of data on the study population will include new measures of immune response, disease risk, and cognitive capacity. Combing these measures with information from previous waves, including the pre- intervention period, will allow us to map out the biological, behavioral and economic pathways through which a cash transfer program influences health at two points in the life-cycle. Specifically, we will exploit the exogenous change in income evoked by random assignment to early-entry treatment condition to estimate the causal effect of income poverty on immune function, and the role of stress in mediating this relationship. We will also estimate the causal effect of the cash transfer on a range of indicators of disease risk. Half the young adults in our sample were exposed to the cash transfer during their critical adolescence years, allowing us to estimate the impact of the cash on their disease risk. By providing estimates for both mature and younger adults, we can observe whether the hypothesized relationship vary across the life-course. The proposal addresses the National Institute of Ageing's Goal B to `better understand the effects of personal, interpersonal, and societal factors on ageing, including mechanisms through which these factors exert their effects.' Within Goal B, the proposal responds to objective B1: `Illuminate the pathways by which social, psychological, economic, and behavioral factors affect health in middle-aged and older adults.'