Upward or downward relative wealth mobility during midlife is associated with lower or higher levels of cardiovascular (CV) events, respectively, later in life, according to a study published in JAMA Cardiology. Researchers conducted a longitudinal retrospec- tive cohort study involving US adults aged 50 and older from the Health and Retirement Study with no history of CV disease. The association between midlife wealth mobility and risk of CV events was assessed for 5,579 participants. The study team found that 24% of participants experienced a primary end- point of nonfatal CV events or CV death during a mean follow-up of 16.9 years (14.4 per 1,000 patient-years). There was an association observed for higher initial wealth with lower CV risk (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] per quintile, 0.89; 95% confi- dence interval [CI], 0.84-0.95). Com- pared with stable wealth, participants who experienced upward wealth mobility (by at least one quintile) had independently lower hazards of subsequent nonfatal CV event or CV death, while those who experienced downward wealth mobility had higher risks, after age 65 (aHR, 0.84 [95% CI, 0.73 to 0.97] and 1.15 [95% CI, 1.00 to 1.32], respectively). “These findings sug- gest that wealth mobility may offset some of the CV risk associated with past economic hardship,” the authors wrote. “Further work is necessary to examine this wealth–health association in more diverse populations, elucidate mechanisms for these observations, and identify potential policy interventions to facilitate wealth mobility among low-income adults.”
