Lack of financial planning linked to higher risk of death in US and UK

Longer-term planning may be most beneficial for the health of people with fewest financial resources

2023-09-27

(Press-News.org) People who are less socioeconomically advantaged have lower life expectancies, with a number of possible underlying mechanisms, such as less ability to spend on healthcare or the psychological effects of economic inequality. Prior research also shows that many households struggle to financially prepare for old age. However, few researchers have explored whether forward-thinking financial decision making is itself associated with lower risk of death.

To address this potential link, Gladstone and Hundtofte analyzed data spanning a 22-year period for 11,478 older people living in the US and participating in the Health and Retirement Study, as well as 10 years’ worth of data on 11,298 UK participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Both studies asked participants to complete questionnaires that included questions about health, life expectancy, and how far into the future they typically planned their finances when making spending or saving decisions.

The researchers found that people who planned their finances further into the future had a lower risk of dying during the study periods. This association held true even after statistically accounting for other factors that could affect mortality risk, such as demographics, income, and self-reported life expectancy—which could inform financial planning decisions.

In addition, people who planned further into the future had better self-reported health, and this association was strongest for the least financially advantaged participants. The researchers note this finding suggests that longer-term planning may be most beneficial for the health of people without financial buffers for large or sudden expenses.

The researchers also note that these findings do not confirm a cause-effect relationship, and more research is needed. Nonetheless, this study could help inform efforts to reduce health disparities among older people.

The authors add: “Our study suggests that a lack of financial planning is not only bad for your wallet, but also for your health and longevity. By encouraging people to think more about their future needs and goals, we may be able to improve their well-being and reduce health disparities.”

#####

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0290506

Citation: Gladstone JJ, Hundtofte CS (2023) A lack of financial planning predicts increased mortality risk: Evidence from cohort studies in the United Kingdom and United States. PLoS ONE 18(9): e0290506. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290506

Author Countries: USA

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

Lack of financial planning linked to higher risk of death in US and UK 2

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Male and female Olympic shooters perform equally well when targets are stationary, though men have the edge for moving targets, per analysis of 2021 Tokyo Olympics which trialed mixed-gender events

2023-09-27

Male and female Olympic shooters perform equally well when targets are stationary, though men have the edge for moving targets, per analysis of 2021 Tokyo Olympics which trialed mixed-gender events. #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291017 Article Title: Do women and men compete equally on a level playing field? An empirical investigation into the 2021 Olympic shooting competitions Author Countries: USA, Spain Funding: The authors received no specific ...

Tree rings reveal a new kind of earthquake threat to the Pacific Northwest

2023-09-27

In February, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook the Turkey-Syria border, followed by one nearly as large nine hours later. Shallow faults less than 18 miles beneath the surface buckled and ruptured, causing violent focused quakes that leveled thousands of buildings and killed tens of thousands. Similar shallow faults ruptured about 1,000 years ago in the Puget Lowlands in western Washington, according to new University of Arizona-led research. Tree rings helped pinpoint that the seismic event occurred in late A.D. 923 or ...

Researchers find potential way to tweak immune system to help it fight tuberculosis

2023-09-27

Tuberculosis is old—ancient even. The infectious bacterial disease that plagued Old Testament Israelites and took down pharaohs was eventually stunted by vaccinations, antibiotics, and public health measures like isolation, but it hasn’t been cured yet. More than a million people around the world still die from TB every year. Now, a Boston University-led research team has found a way to tweak immune cells to better fight the disease and—with the right backing and funding—they say it could ...

Researchers discover disease-causing stem cells in lungs of cystic fibrosis patients

2023-09-27

Two nationally recognized experts in cloning and stem cell science from the University of Houston, Wa Xian and Frank McKeon, are reporting that five lung stem cell variants dominate the lungs of patients with advanced cystic fibrosis (CF), and that these variants drive key aspects of CF pathology including inflammation, fibrosis and mucin secretion. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited and progressive disease that causes long-lasting lung infections and limits the ability to breathe. It is caused by a defect in a gene called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator ...

Combating distrust online: New GW study explains why current messaging efforts may not be effective

2023-09-27

WASHINGTON (September 27, 2023) - New research led by the George Washington University finds that current mitigation efforts to combat distrust online may not be effective because organizations and governments tackling distrust are only targeting one topic and only one geographical scale. The study shows that online distrust has become a ‘glocal’ phenomenon, meaning that it is spreading with different topics lumped together and mixing both local and global interests. “The key takeaway here is that distrust ...

When needs compete, love trumps thirst

2023-09-27

ITHACA, N.Y. – While many studies have investigated the neuroscience behind how an animal learns to achieve a goal, such as obtaining water when thirsty, none have understood how animals choose between several competing needs – until now. A Cornell University-led study, published Sept. 27 in the journal Nature, used advanced techniques developed by researchers to track the brain’s dopamine reward system and found – for the first time – this system flexibly retunes toward the most important goal when faced with multiple competing needs. In the study, when a lonely and thirsty male zebra finch encountered a female, his thirst waned and ...

NIH awards merit grant for nanofiber research targeting metastatic lung tumors

2023-09-27

Dr. Vanessa Bellat, an assistant professor of chemistry in radiology and an affiliate of the Molecular Imaging Innovations Institute (MI3) at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded a $2 million, four-year R37 MERIT grant from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. She will be developing a new therapeutic approach using nanofibers that selectively deliver drugs to the lungs to treat metastatic tumors and testing it in preclinical models. These fibers are made from peptide chains (building blocks that make up proteins) and have a unique 2-dimensional single ...

UTA research: Wildlife loss five times slower in protected areas

2023-09-27

Protecting large areas of land from human activity can help stem the tide of biodiversity loss, especially for vertebrates like amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds, according to a new study in Nature. In particular, vertebrate population declines were five times slower in conservation areas compared to animals living in areas not protected from development or conversion to agricultural use. “Protected areas take us from a situation in which biodiversity is ebbing away to one where populations are at least close to stable,” said Luke Frishkoff, coauthor of the study and assistant professor of biology at The University of Texas at Arlington. ...

Milestone for novel atomic clock

2023-09-27

An international research team has taken a decisive step toward a new generation of atomic clocks. At the European XFEL X-ray laser, the researchers have created a much more precise pulse generator based on the element scandium, which enables an accuracy of one second in 300 billion years – that is about a thousand times more precise than the current standard atomic clock based on caesium. The team presents its success in the journal Nature. Atomic clocks are currently the world’s ...

NSF backs Rice processor design, chip security research

2023-09-27

HOUSTON – (Sept. 27, 2023) Rice University computer scientists have won two grants from the National Science Foundation to explore new information processing technologies and applications that combine seamlessly co-designed hardware and software to allow for more effective and efficient data stream analysis using pattern matching. Initiated by a Rice seed grant, the projects address the limitations of current computing infrastructure’s ability to process complex, unstructured data streams. A $1.2 million award will ...

First evidence of olaparib maintenance therapy in patients with newly diagnosed homologous recombination deficient positive/BRCA wild-type ovarian cancer: real-world multicenter study

Lack of financial planning linked to higher risk of death in US and UK

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: