By John Tozzi | Bloomberg News

Growing up poor has long been linked to lower academic test scores. And there's now mounting evidence that it's partly because kids can suffer real physical consequences from low family incomes, including brains that are less equipped to learn.

http://www.record-eagle.com/cnhi_network/brain-scans-reveal-how-poverty-hurts-children-s-brains/article_5c8e4180-30fb-50b2-91f5-b8938a0786cf.html

Live Online Event: How does poverty affect health decisions?

Posted on July 1, 2014 by TEDMED Staff

Poverty affects every aspect of life and has particularly bad repercussions on human health. The stress of poverty has detrimental effects on the body — and especially the brain.

Two landmark studies are among the many to show poverty’s harsh impact. In the Whitehall Studies, researchers at the University College of London sought to understand how the health of men in the British Civil Service varied by rank. Published in 1978, the first study showed that men ranking lowest were nearly four times more likely to have their lives abruptly ended by heart disease than those at the top. More recently, economist Barry Bosworth at the Brookings Institute and Kathleen Burke of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a study in April 2014 about the life expectancy of women in their mid-fifties with similarly morbid results. A woman at the top of the income scale could expect to live an entire decade longer than a woman of the same age at the lower end.

Obvious reasons exist for health problems among the poor. Physician shortages in low-income neighborhoods leave individuals in these areas with hard options. The closest primary care physician may be over an hour’s ride away on public transportation, which makes it financially taxing and time consuming to make prescribed visits. Beyond the health care system, individuals living below the poverty line are usually overworked, sleep deprived, not able to afford healthy food, and constantly exposed to less than adequate living conditions. The list goes on.

Scientists have begun to discover that poverty takes its toll on health starting at an early age. A recent study published in Nature pointed to telomeres, which are the caps on the end of chromosomes. The research showed that children who grew up in low-income families had shorter telomeres than their peers from more wealthy families. While telomere length naturally reduces with aging, premature shortening of telomeres can lead to a shortened lifespan, as well as an increased risk of chronic disease.

http://blog.tedmed.com/live-on...ct-health-decisions/

There are so many ways that poverty can affect brain development as stated in this and many articles.

I think some of the major ways from my personal (anecdotal) experience are:

1. Low Self Esteem (transmitted through generations) from trauma. With low self-esteem, it can be hard to think one deserves to see a physician or psychologist ---- or good therapy is just not available --- but the type of therapy available is often "us" vs "them" view point. I was required to go to therapy when myself and my sister were removed from our childhood home but the low self-esteem and the very real effects of severe trauma can make going and speaking to someone "educated" when you view yourself as "worthless, unloved, unwanted and on and on" referring to myself can make it hard. But also just the way services are delivered. In our rural community, you have to go into this building where all the doors are locked (and you are locked outside). When you go to the front desk you sometimes feel like less than human -- I have felt this as a physician just inquiring what services are available. This can make some parents reluctant to even sign up their kids for reduced lunch meals or food stamps. This happened for me.

2. You have no ability to afford the basics for survival -- you may even be homeless. I was homeless as a teen. But before that we often had no food, slept in our snowsuits in the winter because we could not use heat or used a kerosine heater in the hall (which is a fire and carbon monoxide hazard in the hall of a single wide trailer).

3. You may have no basic services. Often we had no heat, had no indoor plumbing or cloths. You start to feel beat down but that associated feature of human nature --- discrimination. Even in a small rural area where no one is "rich", there is still this discrimination ---- I was the poor, white trash and it lead to serious bullying in school.

I don't know if poverty would be an ACE if the basics could be met, but it is when the basics cannot be met that poverty does become an ACE and a defining one. I am a doctor, but I still often see myself as that "worthless" "white-trash" I grew up being called and it doggedly follows me wherever I go. (Guess I will have to work on that).

Michigan ACEs Action (MI)

Poverty Impacts Brain Development