Poverty experience, race, and child health

Studies that examine children's poverty and health at one point in time do not account for some children experiencing poverty briefly and others living in poverty for much of their lives. The objective of this study was to determine how duration of poverty and child race are related to child health.

To assess these relationships, we analyzed data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its Child Development Supplement. Ordinary least squares regression was used to estimate bivariate and multivariate models predicting caregiver-rated child health. The regression models assessed the statistical effect of the proportion of childhood in poverty and child race on child health, controlling for child sex, age, parental education, whether the household includes two parents, and family poverty in the last year.

Increasing proportion of childhood in poverty is associated with worse health status. In addition, African American children are more likely than white children to have lower-rated health status. The analysis does not support the hypothesis that poverty more strongly affects the health of African American children.

Increasing exposure to family poverty negatively affects child health. Future research would benefit from more studies that utilize longitudinal measures of childhood poverty. We suggest that public policies to reduce childhood poverty exposure would improve child health.