Socioeconomic Status and Health: A Role for Immune System Mechanisms?

Megan Todd, Princeton University

Low socioeconomic status (SES) has consistently been linked to poor health outcomes and higher mortality. The bioological mechanisms behind the SES-health linkage, however, are not well understood. Immune system mechanisms such as chronic inflammation and age-related immune function decline (“immunosenescence”) are promising but under-studied explanations for how socioeconomic disadvantage might act physiologically to accelerate the onset of chronic disease and death. The present study begins to fill this gap by evaluating whether measures of SES are associated with immune function in a sample of adults in Detroit, Michigan.