AUTHOR=Agnew Megan , Bea Megan Doherty , Friedline Terri 

TITLE=Payday lenders and premature mortality

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.993585

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.993585

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=<p>Relationships between debt and poor health are worrisome as access to expensive credit expands and population health worsens along certain metrics. We focus on payday lenders as one type of expensive credit and investigate the spatial relationships between lender storefronts and premature mortality rates. We combine causes of death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and payday lender locations at the county-level in the United States between 2000 and 2017. After accounting for county socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, the local presence of payday lenders is associated with an increased incidence risk of all-cause and specific-cause premature mortality. State regulations may attenuate these relationships, which provides insights on policy strategies to mitigate health impacts.</p>