Planning for your long-term financial future doesn’t just make good economic sense — it could also save your life. People in both the United States and the United Kingdom have a higher risk of dying prematurely if they aren’t engaged in long-term financial planning, according to a report published online Sept. 27 in PLOS One. In fact, the researchers found that the shorter a person’s financial planning horizon, the greater their risk of dying. “The people who live the longest are the ones who are looking years into the future,” lead researcher Joe Gladstone, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a university Q&A. “It’s very scary how many people are living week to week, month to month, paycheck to paycheck,” Gladstone added. “The majority of people are only looking financially out no more than a month ahead.” The study further revealed that long-term financial planning is most important to the health of those with the fewest means. Increases in financial planning were significantly associated with better health among households making less than $80,000 a year and with overall wealth lower than $450,000, the results showed. “Planning benefits health for financially disadvantaged people more than the advantaged, because those with greater wealth and income have a financial buffer to income or expenditure shocks, insulating them from experiencing financial hardship,”…  read on >  read on >

New parents bringing home their bundle of joy often carry something else with them as they leave the hospital: medical debt. That’s according to new research from Michigan Medicine that found postpartum women are more likely to have medical debt than those who are pregnant. The researchers studied this by evaluating collections among a statewide, commercially insured cohort of more than 14,000 pregnant women and more than 12,000 postpartum women. “Our findings suggest that current out-of-pocket costs before and after childbirth are objectively more than many commercially insured families can afford, leading to medical debt,” said lead author Dr. Michelle Moniz, an obstetrician/gynecologist at University of Michigan Health’s Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital. “Our study highlights the need to consider policies to reduce maternal-infant health care spending in order to ease financial hardship and distress and improve birth equity,” Moniz said in a Michigan Medicine news release. People who were seven to 12 months past childbirth living in the lowest-income neighborhoods had the highest likelihood of having medical debt. After that group, those with the most debt were pregnant women in the lowest-income neighborhoods, followed by other postpartum and pregnant women. “Having unpaid medical bills was not only significantly more common among postpartum individuals, but more common among the most socioeconomically vulnerable people,” Moniz said. “These results suggest that all postpartum individuals are at risk of…  read on >  read on >

Megan Thee Stallion is urging you to check on your friends. The rapper, whose offstage name is Megan Pete, is part of a new public service announcement called Seize the Awkward, a national campaign to encourage young people to talk to friends about mental health. “It’s important that we regularly check in on our friends and family and make sure to show empathy, encouragement and love when they’re struggling,” she said in a statement. “A strong support system can make a powerful difference in someone’s life.” Megan Thee Stallion’s involvement in the campaign may help reduce mental health stigma, Dr. Broderick Sawyer, a clinical psychologist in Louisville, Ky., told CNN. She is “finally making healing look as cool as it should be,” Sawyer said, adding that her involvement “is forcing the conversation to go mainstream. “Many centralizing platforms just have resources that pretend mental health is one-size-fits-all, that everyone is the same,” Sawyer said. “The truth is that people have wildly different experiences depending on their identities, and types of sociopolitical oppression they go through.” Robert Gebbia, CEO of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told CNN that Pete’s involvement may feel more relatable as she works to reach young, marginalized people. Pete has also touched on mental health in her music: Her website, “Bad Bitches Have Bad Days Too” gathers mental health resources in…  read on >  read on >

The Biden administration is allocating $232.2 million in grants to help stem suicides and improve behavioral health care for at-risk groups. Suicide is happening at an “alarming” rate, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Last year alone, nearly 50,000 Americans died by suicide, up 2.6% from 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. During this month, we are reminded that suicide is preventable, and no one should go through a suicide-related crisis alone,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said Wednesday, emphasizing that the Biden administration “is deeply committed to tackling the mental health challenges facing America, and particularly focused on addressing the alarming rates of suicide.” About $200 million of the grant will be used to build local capacity for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and related crisis services. The national suicide hotline was revamped last year with a three-digit number to make it easier to recall in a crisis. The new lifeline received nearly 5 million calls in its first year, almost 2 million more for similar timeframes on the previous hotline, according to HHS. Still, about 82% of respondents to a National Alliance on Mental Illness poll released in July were unaware that they could call or text those three digits for mental health help. With more…  read on >  read on >