A "modest" increase in benefits and working tax credits would prevent thousands of hospital admissions and premature deaths, according to NHS Scotland’s public health body.

An assessment on the health impact of employment and income has found just a 10% increase in Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) would result in 17,000 fewer hospitalisations over ten years.

The study also estimated there would be 26,000 fewer years of life lost due to premature deaths, as a result of health improvements stemming from the income rise.

A similar rise in the value of working tax credits would also result in 5,700 fewer hospital admissions and 8,000 years of life gained over a decade.

Poverty has been linked to a higher risk of illness - for example heart disease and mental health problems - and premature death.

The figures are contained in evidence from NHS Health Scotland which has been submitted to a major inquiry on work, wages and wellbeing being carried out by MSPs on Holyrood’s economy committee.

It is investigating how employment and job quality has changed since the 2008 recession, as well as the impact of low pay and insecure employment in Scotland.

Martin Taulbut, public health information manager for NHS Health Scotland, said measures such as increasing benefits had even more of an impact on improving health than efforts to try to get individuals to change their behaviour.

He said: “These kind of interventions have a stronger impact on both population health – the health of everyone – and reducing health inequalities than individual level interventions.”

The research also found increasing the national minimum wage to £7.20 per hour – which chancellor George Osborne pledged would happen next April – would prevent 56,000 hospitalisations and result in more than 77,000 years of life gained.

And securing an extra 50,000 jobs in the poorest areas of Scotland would mean 1,100 fewer hospitalisations and 29,000 less years of life lost.

Taulbut said the increase in the Living Wage had the biggest overall impact on population health, because of the number of people it would be reaching.

But he added the increase in JSA would have a larger impact on health inequalities due to the type of households it would be helping.

“You may have low paid workers who live in a household with others who are not low paid,” he said. “Whereas with JSA people are more likely to be concentrated in poorer households.”

The NHS Health Scotland submission also noted: “Means-tested ‘work-first’ social security regimes (of the type that operates within the UK and Scotland) are less likely to provide mitigation against the health damaging effects of worklessness, and therefore perpetuate health inequalities.

“Where unemployment benefits are more generous (in terms of eligibility and the value of benefits paid) they can protect the mental health of the unemployed directly, as well as indirectly (by reducing the risk of poverty).”

It went on to add: “It has been argued that benefit levels for working-age people in Britain are set at too low a level to adequately protect against poverty and poor health.

“At 2014 prices, a single working-age adult living alone would require an income of £110 per week (after housing costs) to meet the minimum required for a healthy income.

“Actual benefits for single-working age adults (after housing costs) are currently set at £72 per week.”

Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, said: “We know that benefits levels are so low that they are trapping people in poverty. This in turn has negative consequences on people’s life chances and health.

“Raising people’s incomes needs to be seen as a preventative spend.

“Our social security system needs to be more than just a safety net, instead it should help people improve their life chances. The Living Wage is also key to improving the wellbeing for workers in low pay jobs”.