Fluctuating Income as a Social Determinant of Health

January 3, 2023

A freshly-published study has identified fluctuating income as a social determinant of health (SDoH) that negatively impacts health outcomes. The paper, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, surveyed gig workers, servers, delivery drivers, and other workers whose daily income is not steady. These workers faced health disparities in several key areas of health.

According to Andreai Ionescu, “The analysis revealed that large fluctuations of daily pay over the study period was associated with negative health issues and poor sleep quality. This relationship was stronger when volatile pay made up a larger percentage of the workers’ total pay. Another three-weeks study included 375 U.S. participants who spent an average of 29 hours per week working Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a website where individuals have to complete a variety of tasks for minimal amounts of pay. In this case too, those with larger fluctuations in their pay experienced the worse health outcomes.”

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