Being Poor and Coping With Stress: Health Behaviors and Cumulative Disadvantage

Patrick Krueger, University of Pennsylvania

We have two aims: first, to clarify whether health behaviors modify the relationship between stress and the risk of death, and second, to clarify whether (and if so, which) health behaviors are more important for modifying stress among high or low socioeconomic status individuals. We use the 1990 Health Promotion and Disease Prevention supplement to the National Health Interview Survey, linked to the National Death Index, to examine the relationships among stress, health behaviors, socioeconomic status, and overall mortality, for U.S. adults.