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Health disparity tends to increase among young U.S. adults

April 22, 2017

Finally, a growing "digital divide" in access to medical and health information on the internet has created disparities in health knowledge among different populations, which can affect health choices and outcomes.

The main reason that health disparity is expected to grow in the whole population in the coming decades has to do with what is happening among young adults born since 1980, Zheng said.

Current young adults have a larger health gap than preceding cohorts and, in addition, disparity rises as people move from youth to middle age, peaking at about age 55. Disparity then declines among the elderly, according to the study.

Those two factors will work together to increase disparity in the whole population as young adults replace their elders in the population.

Most young people are generally healthy, which keeps disparities low, Zheng said. As people age and some develop health problems and diseases, disparity grows. But these disparities fall again in old age as sicker people die and only the healthier people remain. The narrower disparities in old age may also result from the fact that all older people suffer frailty and tend to share the same health risk factors. Another factor may be equalization of health care usage and protections through Medicare coverage after age 65.

The study also found gender differences in health across the lifespan. There is a relatively large gap in early adulthood, with men being healthier than women. This gap narrows until about age 61, as men are more likely to experience more severe forms of chronic conditions, such as heart disease.

The gap widens again after age 61, as only the healthier men survive and there is a relatively larger share of women with poorer health alive at older ages.

While this study focused on health, Zheng said this new model can be used to study other types of inequality, such as income, education or wealth.

"This model provides a powerful framework to identify and study the evolution of inequalities across age, period and cohorts," Zheng said.

Source: American Sociological Association