Welfare moms have high health risks

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jun 29, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- A University of Michigan study says health problems experienced by female welfare recipients do not always clear up after the welfare checks stop.

"Everyone says welfare reform is working because welfare rolls are dropping and this reverses a decades-long trend," said George Kaplan, professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. "But there has been virtually no attempt to ask what effect these changes would have on the health of the affected people."

Kaplan said in the study, published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health, that single mothers receiving cash benefits in an urban county in Michigan were 2.4 times more likely to have hypertension, 1.8 times more likely to be obese, and nearly five times as likely to have elevated levels of a marker related to diabetes.

"Social and economic policies are health policy," Kaplan said. "When governments or other agencies make decisions that are going to have an impact on people's lives, they need to understand the impact that could have on their health."