Media release

From: Springer Nature

Neuroscience: State economic factors may moderate the association of income with brain structure and mental health

The cost of living and generosity of a state’s antipoverty programs for low-income families may moderate the association of family income with brain structure and mental health among 9-11 year olds in the US. The findings are published in Nature Communications.

Previous research has found that being raised in a family with lower income is associated with poorer mental health and altered brain structure, and some evidence suggests this relationship is due to the high stress experienced by families with low income. In the US, state-level factors related to financial stress — such as the cost of living and generosity of antipoverty programs, including cash assistance and Medicaid expansion — may therefore moderate the strength of the association of low income with mental health and brain structure. However, examining this potential association has been challenging.

David Weissman and colleagues investigated the association of income with brain size and mental health in children living in the US, and how the strength of this association varies with state-level factors related to financial stress. They used data from children aged 9-11 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, who were living in one of 17 US states with different costs of living, and anti-poverty programs. The data include measures of family income and mental health (for 10,633 children) and brain structure (for 9,913 children). The authors found that lower income was associated with higher symptoms of anxiety, depression, and externalizing problems (such as aggressive behaviour and breaking rules) and smaller hippocampal volume (a region of the brain involved in learning and memory). The strength of these relationships was lower in states with more generous (versus less generous) anti-poverty programs, especially in states with a high cost of living. These patterns persisted when accounting for several state-level social, economic, and political variables.

The findings do not represent an evaluation of the effectiveness of the specific policies tested here, but the authors suggest that state level macrostructural factors are relevant for understanding the link between low income and development.

Springer Nature is committed to boosting the visibility of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and relevant information and evidence published in our journals and books.  The research described in this press release pertains to SDG 1 (No Poverty). More information can be found here.