College Education = Good Health?
May 14, 2008 by Liberty Kontranowski
Filed under Cancer, Death, Exposed!, Health, Healthcare, Heart Health, Politics, Your Body
We’ve been talking quite a bit about the intriguing topic of longevity lately. And if living to a ripe old age is on your “To Do” list, you may want to consider gaining a higher education.
So, does that mean those with a college degree will live longer than their less-educated counterparts? Perhaps.
Epidemiologists from the American Cancer Society and scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) teamed up to analyze the data and death certificate information of more than three and a half million deaths which occurred between 1993 and 2001. During that time period, an evident gap emerged between those in different educational brackets. The most educated folks saw a significant decrease in death rates from causes such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, etc, while the death rates for the least educated groups remained nearly unchanged.
This is the first study to look at recent socioeconomic inequality trends concerning death rates from all causes, as well as from several of the leading causes of death in the U.S.
Potential contributors to this discrepancy? Less educated folks have fewer financial resources to help them stay healthy, including health insurance and stable employment, and they also tend to be less educated on health matters. What’s more, this group is three times more likely to be a current smoker than those with college degrees. And with smoking comes issues like heart disease, lung disease and cancer.
With such an unnerving discovery, we’re left wondering: what can be done to change this?
What would you do if you were the president? How would you bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots, at least from a health standpoint? Or is this issue simply too far gone and hopeless? Weigh in - we’d love to hear your ideas…
More reading:
The Washington Post
American Cancer Society
Image: Newscom
Kelly Townsend
i agree with u
It seems to follow. Those with higher education generally attain higher level jobs. Those jobs allow them to be financially secure and to afford quality food and better medical attention. I think that stress can also shorten lifespan. Someone with barely the money or means to support himself or his family, will be much more stressed at work because his life and the lives of those he loves depend on his paycheck. On the other hand, people who are financially secure and who aren’t living paycheck to paycheck, can relax more, and let off some of their anxiety.
I think that the only real way to bridge the gap is communism, but tried implementations of communism have never worked due to the greed of the common man. In Israel, there are small villages, called Kibutz, that have some form of communism. They all live together and all share the responsibilities of the community. Money is put together and taken by a member of the society only when they need it. This, I think, is probably the closest anyone will ever come to communism, and it will certainly never be achieved here in the U.S.
Hi GiC,
Thanks for your thoughts. Your first paragraph is one that would be hard to dispute. You make a lot of very valid points that I’m sure are right on target.
You might lose a lot of folks with the “communism” idea, though. What you describe in that paragraph is surely an interesting concept that might work in some places. But, of course, the very word “communism” has such a stigma attached to it, getting supporters on board with it would be a struggle, I presume.
Thanks again for your thoughts. Much appreciated.