Research Regarding Low-Income Single Mothers' Mental and Physical Health: A Decade in Review

Abstract

This article reviews a decade of research and confirms that low-income single mothers with children remain vulnerable to multiple chronic risk factors, including financial and food insecurity, poor health care access, job insecurity, poor access to quality child care, and poor quality housing in unsafe neighborhoods. As a consequence, their health and mental health suffers, increasing the risks they and their children must face on a daily basis. Solutions to problems faced by single mothers and their families are dependent upon the development of short- and long-term policies and programs that address and reduce these risks.

Keywords:

• single mothers
• poverty
• stress
• mental health
• custodial grandmothers