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Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life

September 5th, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life)

“The lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function. The very condition of not having enough can actually be a cause of poverty.”

picture 497Poverty and all its related concerns require so much mental energy that the poor have less remaining brainpower to devote to other areas of life, according to research based at Princeton University. As a result, people of limited means are more likely to make mistakes and bad decisions that may be amplified by — and perpetuate — their financial woes. (more…)

Poverty is linked to multiple health problems in new mothers

September 5th, 2013 | Posted by pfmarchive in uncategorized - (Comments Off on Poverty is linked to multiple health problems in new mothers)

New mothers living on very low incomes are more than 20 times more likely to experience multiple health problems than new mothers living on high incomes

picture 498The Centre for Research on Inner City Health analyzed health survey data representative of more than 75,000 Canadian women who recently had given birth. Researchers looked at the relationship between low income and the risk of experiencing three to five of these health conditions at the same time: adverse birth outcomes, postpartum depression, serious abuse, hospitalization during pregnancy and frequent stressful life events. (more…)