TY - JOUR
T1 - Do wealth and inequality associate with health in a small-scale subsistence society?
AU - Jaeggi, Adrian V.
AU - Blackwell, Aaron D.
AU - Von Rueden, Christopher
AU - Trumble, Benjamin C.
AU - Stieglitz, Jonathan
AU - Garcia, Angela R.
AU - Kraft, Thomas S.
AU - Beheim, Bret A.
AU - Hooper, Paul L.
AU - Kaplan, Hillard
AU - Gurven, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
The Tsimane Health and Life History Project has been funded by NSF (BCS0136274, BCS0422690) and NIH/NIA (RF1AG054442, R01AG024119, R56AG024119). AJ was supported by the Swiss NSF (PBZHP3-133443) and by the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. JS acknowledges Institute for Advanced Study Toulouse funding from the French National Research Agency (ANR) under grant ANR-17-EURE-0010 (Investissements d’Avenir program). BAB acknowledges research funding from the Max Planck Society, through the Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture. The authors report no conflicts of interests.
Publisher Copyright:
© Jaeggi et al.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - In high-income countries, one’s relative socio-economic position and economic inequality may affect health and well-being, arguably via psychosocial stress. We tested this in a small-scale subsistence society, the Tsimane, by associating relative household wealth (n = 871) and community-level wealth inequality (n = 40, Gini = 0.15-0.53) with a range of psychological variables, stressors, and health outcomes (depressive symptoms [n = 670], social conflicts [n = 401], non-social problems [n = 398], social support [n = 399], cortisol [n = 811], body mass index [n = 9,926], blood pressure [n = 3,195], self-rated health [n = 2523], morbidities [n = 1542]) controlling for community-average wealth, age, sex, household size, community size, and distance to markets. Wealthier people largely had better outcomes while inequality associated with more respiratory disease, a leading cause of mortality. Greater inequality and lower wealth were associated with higher blood pressure. Psychosocial factors did not mediate wealth-health associations. Thus, relative socio-economic position and inequality may affect health across diverse societies, though this is likely exacerbated in high-income countries.
AB - In high-income countries, one’s relative socio-economic position and economic inequality may affect health and well-being, arguably via psychosocial stress. We tested this in a small-scale subsistence society, the Tsimane, by associating relative household wealth (n = 871) and community-level wealth inequality (n = 40, Gini = 0.15-0.53) with a range of psychological variables, stressors, and health outcomes (depressive symptoms [n = 670], social conflicts [n = 401], non-social problems [n = 398], social support [n = 399], cortisol [n = 811], body mass index [n = 9,926], blood pressure [n = 3,195], self-rated health [n = 2523], morbidities [n = 1542]) controlling for community-average wealth, age, sex, household size, community size, and distance to markets. Wealthier people largely had better outcomes while inequality associated with more respiratory disease, a leading cause of mortality. Greater inequality and lower wealth were associated with higher blood pressure. Psychosocial factors did not mediate wealth-health associations. Thus, relative socio-economic position and inequality may affect health across diverse societies, though this is likely exacerbated in high-income countries.
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U2 - 10.7554/ELIFE.59437
DO - 10.7554/ELIFE.59437
M3 - Article
C2 - 33988506
AN - SCOPUS:85108891780
VL - 10
JO - eLife
JF - eLife
SN - 2050-084X
M1 - e59437
ER -