A new American Journal of Preventive Medicine study highlights higher rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) for adults who fail to pay down student debt.
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the study reviewed initial health information collected in 1994 from over 20,745 adolescent participants, along with four subsequent rounds of follow-up data from the same participants as they aged.
The 12% of respondents who reported paying off their debt by the last round of data collection—when the subjects were anywhere from age 22 to 44—had the lowest risk of CVD, followed by the second-lowest risk levels for the 37% of participants who reported that they did not take on student debt at all.
The two cohorts at greatest risk for cardiovascular disease were the 24% of respondents who consistently had unpaid debt throughout the different follow-up rounds and the 28% of respondents who had taken on new student debt.
“Our study respondents came of age and went to college at a time when student debt was rapidly rising, with an average debt of around $25,000 for four-year college graduates,” said lead investigator Adam M. Lippert, PhD, of the University of Colorado’s Department of Sociology in a statement. “It’s risen more since then, leaving young cohorts with more student debt than any before them.”
To measure risk, the study’s authors used 30-year Framingham cardiovascular disease risk scores, which measure the likelihood of a cardiac event over the next 30 years of life using inputs including sex, age, blood pressure, antihypertensive treatment, smoking status, diabetes diagnosis, and body mass index.
The group also looked at participants’ C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. High CRP levels serve as a biomarker of chronic inflammation, and both of the two cohorts with higher CVD risk also had higher CRP levels than their peers.
Race and ethnicity did not have any significant impacts on the results, according to the study.
Overall, the findings build on existing knowledge that student debt burdens impact how people self-report their health and mental health.
“Previous research showed that, in the short term, student debt burdens were associated with self-reported health and mental health, so we were interested in understanding whether student debt was associated with cardiovascular illness among adults in early mid-life,” Lippert explained.
Based on the study’s conclusion that holding student debt indeed makes a future cardiovascular event more likely, Lippert expressed concerns about potential consequences for population health.
“Unless something is done to reduce the costs of going to college and forgive outstanding debts, the health consequences of climbing student loan debt are likely to grow.”
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