Family financial stress in midlife is associated with increased physical pain over the next several decades , according to this new study from the University of Georgia.
27 years of longitudinal study
The authors used data from the Iowa Youth and Family Project , a longitudinal study that provides 27 years of data on rural families from a group of eight counties in north-central Iowa.
The data was collected in real time from marriages of 500 families that experienced financial problems associated with the agricultural crisis of the late 1980s .
Most people are now over 65, and couples form lasting marriages, some as long as 45 years.
Even after the researchers controlled for concurrent physical illnesses, family income, and age, they found a connection between family financial hardship in the early 1990s and physical pain nearly three decades later .
Additional findings from their study show that financial stress is more likely to influence physical pain, although physical pain in turn can influence financial stress through additional healthcare costs.