title: Credit scores, cardiovascular disease risk, and human capital.
abstract: Credit scores are the most widely used instruments to assess whether or not a person is a financial risk. Credit scoring has been so successful that it has expanded beyond lending and into our everyday lives, even to inform how insurers evaluate our health. The pervasive application of credit scoring has outpaced knowledge about why credit scores are such useful indicators of individual behavior. Here we test if the same factors that lead to poor credit scores also lead to poor health. Following the Dunedin (New Zealand) Longitudinal Study cohort of 1,037 study members, we examined the association between credit scores and cardiovascular disease risk and the underlying factors that account for this association. We find that credit scores are negatively correlated with cardiovascular disease risk. Variation in household income was not sufficient to account for this association. Rather, individual differences in human capital factors—educational attainment, cognitive ability, and self-control—predicted both credit scores and cardiovascular disease risk and accounted for ∼45% of the correlation between credit scores and cardiovascular disease risk. Tracing human capital factors back to their childhood antecedents revealed that the characteristic attitudes, behaviors, and competencies children develop in their first decade of life account for a significant portion (∼22%) of the link between credit scores and cardiovascular disease risk at midlife. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy debates about data privacy, financial literacy, and early childhood interventions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708;
authors.forename: Salomon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Israel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27708; Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom;
authors.forename: Avshalom
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caspi
authors.affiliation: Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27708; Social Science Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708;
authors.forename: Daniel W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Belsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708;
authors.forename: HonaLee
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Harrington
authors.affiliation: Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand;
authors.forename: Sean
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hogan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708;
authors.forename: Renate
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Houts
authors.affiliation: Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand;
authors.forename: Sandhya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramrakha
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; and Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.
authors.forename: Seth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sanders
authors.affiliation: Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand;
authors.forename: Richie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Poulton
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27708; Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom; terrie.moffitt@duke.edu.
authors.forename: Terrie E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Moffitt
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D016014:Linear Models; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009520:New Zealand / Q000453:epidemiology; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012307:Risk Factors; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: cardiovascular disease risk; consumer finance; credit score; human capital