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Stressful events take their toll years later Washington: A new study by University of Michigan researchers has found that life's stressful events like death of a child, divorce, an assault or loss of a job can take a toll on physical health and mortality many years later, and are especially likely to happen to people with low levels of education and income. The study, published in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, is among the first from longitudinal studies to support the popular belief that allostatic load - the cumulative impact of stress from personal loss and bad luck - takes a toll on health and mortality. It found that nearly half of a nationally representative sample of 3,617 U.S. adults had experienced at least one of four major life stresses at the start of the study. About 12 percent had been widowed, 25 percent had been divorced, 11 percent had lost a child and about 16 percent had been the victim of a serious physical assault. The researchers found that the more negative events people experienced, the higher their risk of death. Considering many other factors, those experiencing more of these serious life events had a 25 percent higher mortality rate over the next eight years. "We expected to find socioeconomic differences in the prevalence of many stressful events. But the magnitude of many of these differences was surprising," said lead researcher Paula Lantz.
For example, among those ages 25 to 44, about 11 percent of those without
a high school diploma had a child who died, compared with just 1 percent
of those with a college degree. Among middle-aged adults, the percentages
were higher but the pattern was the same. About 23 percent of those
with the least education had a child who died, compared with 6.5 percent
of the most educated. About 16 percent of middle-aged people without
a high school degree had been widowed, compared with only 6 percent
of the most educated. About 31 percent of the least educated young adults
had been physically assaulted, compared with 17 percent of the most
educated. "By the time people reach the age of 65, the differences are
not as pronounced. At that stage of life, bad things like the death
of a child or the loss of a spouse have unfortunately caught up with
more people at all levels of income and education," Lantz said. "The
chances that bad things will happen to people are strongly related to
their income and education levels, and the impact of these negative
events, along with the wear-and-tear of chronic financial and parental
stress, translate into poorer health and greater mortality for millions
of Americans," Lantz added.
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