High levels of medical debt are linked to declining physical and mental health and can even contribute to premature death, according to a new study by the American Cancer Society.
The report, published this week in the journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, examined 2018 medical debt data from the Urban Institute’s Debt in America project.
That data was compared to self-reported health statuses and premature death rates in nearly 3,000 counties nationwide — or 93% of the country, including Nassau and Suffolk — compiled by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, along with 2015-19 mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System. Premature death was measured as years of life lost before the age of 75.
Researchers found that when 1% more of the general population has medical debt the result is 18.3 more unhealthy physical days; 17.9 more mentally unhealthy days and 1.12 years of life lost per 1,000 people during the past month.
Medical debt and elevated mortality rates were consistently linked, researchers found, for all leading causes of death in the U.S. including cancer, heart disease and suicide.
“Patients are increasingly burdened by high out-of-pocket costs for health care in the U.S. including problems paying medical bills and medical debt, but little was known about county-level associations of medical debt with population health,” said Xuesong Han, lead author of the study and scientific director of health services research at the American Cancer Society. “Our findings reinforce medical debt as an important social determinant of health, which, unfortunately, may threaten public health in the country.”
Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of health initiatives at the Community Service Society, a Manhattan nonprofit that assists patients with medical bills, said it’s not uncommon for individuals who owe thousands to hospitals to cease medical treatment because of their mounting debt.
“We see that patients who have medical…
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