Rich people stay healthy for nearly a decade longer than the poor, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journals of Gerontology.
Researchers from the University College London looked at data of over 25,000 adults in the United States and England and divided participants into three different groups based on total household wealth.
The people in the wealthiest group were found to have lived lives free of disabilities nearly 10 years longer than those in the poorest group, reports CNN.
"While life expectancy is a useful indicator of health, the quality of life as we get older is also crucial. By measuring healthy life expectancy we can get an estimate of the number of years of life spent in favorable states of health or without disability," Dr Paola Zaninotto, the report's lead author, said in a statement.
"The U.S. must make greater efforts into reducing health inequalities," Zaninotto said, adding that the "inequalities in healthy life expectancy exist in both countries and are of similar magnitude."
Additionally, researchers were able to determine that wealthy women were expected to live 33 disability-free years compared with poor women, who could only expect 23 to 24.6 healthy years. For men, the richer group was expected to live 31 years without disabilities compared to 22 to 23 healthy years for the less wealthy.
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