by Jennifer Cox Longevity If you have a university degree, does it mean that you will live longer than someone who does not? According to myriad studies conducted in the last seven years, the short answer is, yes. Researchers have found that there’s a link between higher education and a higher life expectancy. Two years ago, a study by researchers at the University of Colorado Denver, New York University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill estimated the number of deaths that can be linked to differences in education, and found that variation in the risk of death across education levels has widened considerably. The findings also suggested that lacking education may be as deadly as being a current, rather than a former smoker. “In public health policy, we often focus on changing health behaviours such as diet, smoking and drinking,” said Virginia Chang, associate professor of public health at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and College of Global Public Health, and associate professor of population health at NYU School of Medicine. “Education – which is a more fundamental, upstream driver of health behaviours and disparities – should also be a key element of U.S. health policy.” More than 10 per cent of U.S. adults ages 25 to 34 do not have a high school degree, while more than a quarter have some college but no bachelor’s degree. Yet, studies show that a higher level of education is a strong predictor of longevity due to many factors, including higher income and social status, healthier behaviours and improved social and psychological well-being. Deaths from cardiovascular disease played a greater role than deaths from cancer in these growing gaps in mortality and improvements in survival for well-educated people, likely due to advances in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease among those with more education (Steinhardt School at NYU). ABC News cited another study, done by Harvard University, which found a “stunning” correlation between the longer lifespan of people with at least one year of college compared to people with a high school education or less, according to David Cutler, dean of social sciences at Harvard. And the gap is growing, they reported. Cutler and EllenMeara, assistant professor of health-care policy at the Harvard Medical School, found that persons with at least one year of college increased their lifespan by nearly a year-and-ahalf from 1980 to 1990. But those with a high school diploma or less gained only about six months. However, the article went on to state, what’s killing people isn’t necessarily a lack of education, but such fundamental issues as smoking, obesity and inactivity – and all those things are reflected in the level of education. “Smoking among the better-educated people is very low, very frowned upon,” he said. “But we have not done the same thing for the less educated. That’s the big thing that’s really killing us.” Despite billions of dollars spent on warning against smoking, less-educated persons, especially, continue to smoke. So, while it seems that education does have an overall impact on how long we live, it’s not simply because we didn’t seek out a university degree that our lifespan might decrease. Other things come into play. Instead, it’s the socio-economic factors that make education a factor in determining longevity. However, it never hurts to keep on learning (plus, it may add a fewmonths to your life). LONGEVITY AND EDUCATION is there a link? CSANews | SUMMER 2017 | 41
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