Authors suggest medical debt can be tied to cascade resulting in further worsening health
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 21, 2026 (HealthDay News) — People with medical debt are significantly more likely to experience subsequent housing instability, according to a study published online Jan. 12 in JAMA Network Open.
Kyle J. Moon, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and colleagues examined the association between past-year, self-reported medical debt and housing instability in the subsequent year. The analysis included 1,515 adults participating in the Cumulative Life Stressors Impact on Mental Health and Well Being Study (2023 to 2025).
The researchers found that the unadjusted prevalence of subsequent housing instability was markedly higher among adults with medical debt versus those without medical debt (23.5 versus 5.8 percent). When adjusting for confounders, medical debt was associated with an increase of 7.0 percentage points in the probability of housing instability in the subsequent year.
“Given what we know about the importance of housing for health, these findings suggest that for many people, receiving health care can lead to medical debt, and then to housing instability,” Moon said in a statement. “This can create a cascade of consequences, including delayed health care, that jeopardizes health.”
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