Universally, health is better among the wealthy and worse among the poor.

OAS guarantees an income floor of CAD$21,345.72 to every Canadian over 65.

Receiving OAS as highest income removes the health penalty of financial insecurity.

Guaranteed annual income may represent an effective and important public health policy.

Old Age Security (OAS) represents an public policy through which income-related inequalities in health may be improved. The goal of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the health benefits of receiving OAS in financially insecure older Canadians.

Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) (n=15,691), ordered logistic regression was used to measure associations between financial insecurity and allostatic load.

Receiving OAS as highest personal income source appeared to remove the health penalty of being financially insecure. While financial insecurity was associated with worse allostatic load in both males and females not receiving OAS, those receiving OAS as highest personal income source had better allostatic load compared to other financially insecure older adults (ORM: 0.398, 95 % CI: 0.227, 0.696; ORF: 0.677, 95 % CI: 0.483, 0.949).

While longitudinal data would be needed to draw causal inferences, these results suggest OAS may play a role improving health outcomes and narrowing income-related health inequalities. Such findings may have important implications on older adults, other vulnerable populations, and future directions of Canadian health and public policy.

Guaranteed annual income

Allostatic Load

Public policy

Health inequality

Healthy aging

CLSA

© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.