Exposure to Bank Crises in Childhood and Adult Stroke Risks

Solveig Argeseanu Cunningham, Emory University
Chris Cunningham, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Kristine Ria Hearld, University of Alabama at Birmingham
George Howard, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Virginia Howard, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Economic crises aggravate poverty and increase the number of households experiencing poverty, though they have often been found to correlate with improved health behaviors and health. A particularly stressful type of crises are bank failures, shown previously to be associated with contemporaneous increases in suicide and cardiovascular disease. Here, we focus on the long-term consequences of banking crises. We use the REGARDS study, a national population-based cohort of African-American and white older adults, merged with a dataset of historical county-level characteristics of the county and year in which they were born. We examine the cardiovascular disease risks of adults born during the Great Depression in U.S. counties that did and did not experience bank suspensions the year of their birth. Individuals who were born in a county experiencing a bank crisis had worse cardiovascular health about 70 years later. This relationship was not explained by current socio-economic and behavioral characteristics.