Health and Wealth
As momentum for Baby Bonds grows around the United States, more and more stakeholders are making the case that wealth not only provides economic security, but also important health benefits.
In general, wealth provides people with greater agency, resiliency, and stability, allowing them to manage expenses, avoid unmanageable debt, navigate and mitigate crises, plan for and invest in their futures, buffer unexpected income shocks such as a pandemic, a car repair, or a loss of employment, and so much more.
Wealth also shapes health and developmental outcomes throughout life. Factors such as birthweight, socio-emotional development, and the quality of a child’s attachment to a caregiver are influenced by wealth.
Among many benefits, wealth directly protects health by enabling people to access quality health care, afford health-promoting goods and services, live in higher amenity neighborhoods, spend more time on health-promoting activities, and feel less anxious and more in control of their lives.
As the global COVID-19 pandemic brought to light, people with fewer resources are exposed to greater health and environmental risks, including limited access to affordable health care and higher rates of uninsurance and underinsurance, housing vulnerability, job loss, and other economic factors that fundamentally shape our health and wellbeing.
As a result, as a growing body of research demonstrates, people with wealth are more likely to have better health outcomes, including:
- improved physical and mental health across all age groups;
- improved maternal health;
- reduced infant mortality;
- greater life expectancy—as much as 6 years more than those with lower incomes;
- lower stress and anxiety; and
- greater hope for the future.
In their 2024 paper, “An Asset Framework to Guide Nonhealth Policy for Population Health,” public health researchers Catherine K. Ettman and Sandro Galea note:
There is now copious evidence that economic and social conditions shape population and individual health. Although the income-health gradient has been established across all life stages, there is evidence that wealth is a stronger indicator of financial well-being and predictor of subsequent health.
By helping more families build assets over time, Baby Bonds have the potential to improve individual and public health by addressing the upstream economic inequities that contribute to many health challenges.
Read on for resources, research, and articles on the connection between health and wealth.