Comments on: More Education Decreases the Risk of Death

By: Walter Jessen

Walter Jessen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:09:56 +0000

Hi Andreas: Interesting idea! Given that income isn’t a factor for access to healthcare, one might hypothesize that there wouldn’t be a socioeconomic inequality in the European death rate. If there was an inequality, other factors (e.g. health literacy) may play a more central role.

By: Andreas Bergmann

Andreas Bergmann — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:43:39 +0000

Hi Walter,
i live in Austria, Europe where we have a very different health system compared to the US-System. Here everyone has access to healthcare because the insurance is mandatory for every employment and even the unemployed have insurance.
Of course there is still the possibility for rich people to choose the best (private) doctors but all in all the access to health care does not depend on income (at least in theory).
I dont know about similar studies in Europe where the income-factor would not be so big. It would be interesting to compare the correlation between Education/IQ/Income and live expectancy in the US with European systems where Income is a weaker factor and Education should have a more dominating effect. With this it would be easier to measure the effect of education without mixing it up with money.

By: Paul McGee

Paul McGee — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:13:12 +0000

Thanks for posting about this Walter.

By: Walter Jessen

Walter Jessen — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:08:05 +0000

Hi Andreas: I think there’s two messages to take from this study:

(1) People with more education have increased access to healthcare, possibly because of the benefits provided by their employer and/or because they have the financial resources to afford it. People with increased education may be more health literate, but I think the principle factor affecting mortality is income.
(2) The costs of healthcare have increased to the point that (starting in the early 80s) income is now a determinant with respect to life expectancy.

By: Andreas Bergmann

Andreas Bergmann — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:05:40 +0000

I am still not sure what these statistics tell us.
Do they tell us, that with an higher IQ ann/or better education you are more likely to have a healthy lifestyle, inform yourself about health-risks, make more sport and buy healthier food?
Or do they tell us that it is important to have more money because the system is unfair and poor people cannot efford good health care?
The political consequences would be quite different for different answers.