Citation
Hummer, Robert A. & Perry, Lauren M. (2013). Education and Health.. Baxter, Janeen (Ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.Abstract
The relationship between education and health comprises important portions of the sociological, social science, and public health literatures. Over the last half-century, sociologists, economists, epidemiologists, and other health scientists have documented that people with higher levels of education live longer and healthier lives, on average, than people with lower levels of education. The education–health association is not uniform, though, either across time or when population subgroups or geographic areas are compared. Thus, a great deal of scientific work documents temporal, geographic, and demographic differences in the overall education-health association. Moreover, the strength of the education–health relationship tends to differ depending on which health outcome(s)—self-rated general health, the presence or absence of chronic conditions, whether or not individuals become physically disabled late in life, and so on—is the object of study. All told, there is a great deal of work in sociology, demography, and related disciplines dedicated to the accurate description of educational differences in health outcomes across population subgroups, over time, and for specific geographic areas. Beyond accurate description, the education–health literature is also characterized by important debates regarding the extent to which education is either simply correlated with health or whether education causally influences health outcomes. If education is causally related to health, what are the key mechanisms by which it does so? On the other hand, is the relationship between education and health spurious, that is, the result of factors that are common to both education and health (such as intelligence or parents’ socioeconomic background)? Scientific research tackling such issues is at the forefront of work in this area of study, in large part because the issue of causality is so central to policy debates surrounding education’s role in future improvements in population health. This article touches on the classic works, key scientific resources, important descriptive papers, and central debates that characterize this area of study.URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/OBO/9780199756384-0096Reference Type
Book SectionYear Published
2013Author(s)
Hummer, Robert A.Perry, Lauren M.