Educational debt can increase the risk for cardiovascular disease
According to a new study, adults who do not repay college debt or take on new educational debt between young adulthood and early middle age are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
The findings of the research were published in the journal 'American Journal of Preventive Medicine'.
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The individuals who repaid their student debt had better or equivalent health than individuals who never faced student debt, suggesting that relieving the burden of student debt could improve population health.
"As the cost of college has increased, students and their families have taken on more debt to get to and stay in college. Consequently, student debt is a massive financial burden to so many in the United States, and yet we know little about the potential long-term health consequences of this debt."
Investigator Adam M. Lippert, PhD, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Denver explained that, "Previous research showed that, in the short term, student debt burdens were associated with self-reported health and mental health, so we were interested in understanding whether student debt was associated with cardiovascular illness among adults in early mid-life.”
Four subsequent waves of data were collected, including Wave 3, when the respondents were aged 18-26 and Wave 5, when respondents were aged 22-44. Wave 5 respondents were invited to in-home medical exams.
Researchers assessed biological measures of cardiovascular health of 4,193 qualifying respondents using the 30-year Framingham cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk score, which considers sex, age, blood pressure, antihypertensive treatment, smoking status, diabetes diagnosis, and body mass index to measure the likelihood of a cardiovascular illness over the next 30 years of life.
The investigators classified student debt according to the following categories: never had student debt; paid off the debt between Waves 3 and 5; took on debt between waves, and consistently in debt. Models were also adjusted for respondent household and family characteristics including education, income, and other demographics.
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Interestingly, respondents who paid off debt had significantly lower CVD risk scores than those never in debt. They found clinically significant CRP value estimates for those who took on new debt or were consistently in debt between young adulthood and early mid-life, estimates that exceeded their counterparts who never had debt or paid it off. Race/ethnicity had no impact on the results.
-PTC News
