[stuff I don't disagree with]
Poverty in itself can pose additional health risks - stress etc.. (though certainly not confined to the poor) will perhaps have a big impact. While money doesn't necessarily buy people happiness it can certainly eliminate lots of potential sources of unhappiness.
That makes me think of another health risk linked to poverty - employment. Badly paid jobs tend to be unhealthy jobs, sometimes deliberately because of social norms. For example, repeated prolonged periods of standing are unhealthy. That's well known and has been for at least all of recorded history. The first
modern medical paper on the subject was published over 300 years ago and there have been many since. The evidence is overwhelming and the fact is well known - it causes pain in the short term and chronic circulatory and musculo-skeletal problems in the mid and long term. It's a custom in this country for people in low-status jobs to be forced to stand while working regardless of circumstances. Even if the work could be done as efficiently when seated. Even if the work could be done
more efficiently when seated. Even when the work involves using equipment specifically designed to be used from a seated position. Harming people in low-status jobs so that the resulting pain and chronic medical problems rub their face in their inferior status is usually considered more important to a business than profit. The only change recently has been to restrict or remove sick pay so that poor people can't take time off when they've been harmed enough. Why care? There are always more peasants to hire.
Then there's the harm done by not caring, as opposed to malice. For example, people stacking shelves in supermarkets. They won't have knee protection, though they should. Kneeling on a hard surface while moving is a hazard and over time it will do harm. But why would a supermarket "waste" money buying that protection for its peasants? Or even think about doing so? Or allow them time to fetch it and put it on if they pay for it themselves? Why care?
Then there's the harm inherent in many manual jobs, which tend to be badly paid or at least less well paid. The exercise is beneficial, but the repeated physical stresses aren't.
Or unemployment and poverty, which brings other health problems. The stress you refer to is one, but there's also the hopelessness. The highest plausibly attainable goal is a crap job that controls their life and damages their health and which only exists because they're cheaper than a machine. Not exactly a fine recipe for higher levels of a hierarchy of needs. Maslow wouldn't give that scenario high marks, that's for sure. They have a lower status than a medieval peasant because a medieval peasant served a useful purpose in their life - they produced food or something else that was useful. So I'm pretty sure there's a link with mental health, which causes a link with physical health.
