@article{456767,
      recid = {456767},
      author = {Wolfe, Barbara.},
      title = {The biological consequences of socioeconomic inequalities  /},
      publisher = {Russell Sage Foundation,},
      address = {New York :},
      pages = {xx, 269 p. :},
      year = {2012},
      abstract = {"Social scientists have repeatedly uncovered a disturbing  feature of economic inequality: people with larger incomes  and better education tend to lead longer, healthier lives.  This pattern holds across all ages and for virtually all  measures of health, apparently indicating a biological  dimension of inequality. But scholars have only begun to  understand the complex mechanisms that drive this  disparity. How exactly do financial well-being and human  physiology interact? The Biological Consequences of  Socioeconomic Inequalities incorporates insights from the  social and biological sciences to quantify the biology of  disadvantage and to assess how poverty gets under the skin  to impact health. Drawing from unusually rich datasets of  biomarkers, brain scans, and socioeconomic measures,  Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities  illustrates exciting new paths to understanding social  inequalities in health. Barbara Wolfe, William N. Evans and  Nancy Adler begin the volume with a critical evaluation of  the literature on income and health, providing a lucid  review of the difficulties of establishing clear causal  pathways between the two variables. In their chapter, Arun  S. Karlamangla, Tara L. Gruenewald, and Teresa E. Seeman  outline the potential of biomarkers--such as cholesterol,  heart pressure, and C-reactive protein--to assess and  indicate the factors underlying health. Edith Chen, Hannah  M. C. Schreier, and Meanne Chan reveal the empirical power  of biomarkers by examining asthma, a condition steeply  correlated with socioeconomic status. Their analysis shows  how stress at the individual, family, and neighborhood  levels can increase the incidence of asthma. The volume  then turns to cognitive neuroscience, using biomarkers in a  new way to examine the impact of poverty on brain  development. Jamie Hanson, Nicole Hair, Amitabh Chandra, Ed  Moss, Jay Bhattacharya, Seth D. Pollack, and Barbara Wolfe  use a longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) study  of children between the ages of four and eighteen to study  the link between poverty and limited cognition among  children. Michelle C. Carlson, Christopher L. Seplaki, and  Teresa E. Seeman also focus on brain development to examine  the role of socioeconomic status in cognitive decline among  older adults.   Featuring insights from the biological and  social sciences, Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic  Inequalities will be an essential resource for scholars  interested in socioeconomic disparities and the biological  imprint that material deprivation leaves on the human  body."--Publisher's website.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/456767},
}