Education is an important predictor of health, wealth and longevity

Seniority, being in management

Wealth (more than others). Per capita GDP

Psychological traits

Education drives them all

References

Seniority, being in management

Fifty years ago, most people thought that senior managers had the most stressful jobs. After all, they were responsible for more people, bigger budgets and more important decisions. Then along came British researcher Michael Marmot, who conducted the Whitehall study of public servants that looked at how high they were in the pecking order and how long they lived. He confirmed just the opposite to the general belief at that time - the data showed that the more senior people in the civil service enjoyed better health and longer lives. Between 1985 and 1988 Marmot's team further investigated the degree and causes of the social gradient in morbidity in a new cohort of 10,314 civil servants (6900 men, 3414 women) aged 35-55 (the Whitehall II study). (2)

Professor Marmot proposed that there are two reasons why your position in society is so important. Firstly, if you are at the top you have more autonomy or control over your life. Secondly, the higher up you are, the more opportunities you have for "full social engagement and participation."

Wealth (more than others). Per capita GDP

Since then, other studies around the world have shown a strong correlation between wealth and health. Rising income and the subsequent improved standard of living were thought to be the most important factor contributing to a long and healthy life. The wealthiest towns and states in a country tend to be healthier than the poorest. In 1975 Samuel Preston demonstrated this connection with a curve which plotted life expectancy against per capita GDP across a sample of countries. The curves consistently showed a positive relationship between life span and income.

Psychological traits

Psychological studies have also tried to pick out what it is that makes people healthier and longer-lived. The most important trait is conscientiousness. People who are organised and conscientious are significantly healthier than those who are slapdash and lack integrity. They tend to have more intellectual curiosity and self-discipline, two traits that assist in the lifelong quest for good health.

Education drives them all

Is it possible that just one of these psychological and social predictors of health is the underlying cause of all the others? Wolfgang Lutz and Endale Kebede published a study in April 2018 which shows that education is the key causal predictor. They used global data from 174 countries from 1970-2015 to test whether income or education were responsible for improving health and life expectancy. They found both were correlated, but education had by far the closer correlation. The apparent link between health and income found by Preston is explained by the fact that better education results in both better health and higher incomes.

"This paper is more radical than previous analyses in terms of challenging the ubiquitous view that income and medical interventions are the main drivers of health. It even shows that the empirical association between income and health is largely spurious," says Lutz.

Early education leads to better planning abilities and better self-control. Educated people with these abilities earn more. Better education leads to improved cognition and in turn to better choices for health-related behaviours. Today's chronic diseases are largely lifestyle-related, and the better choices made by educated people are becoming even more apparent.

This may suggest that governments and decision makers all around the world should give a higher priority to funding quality education, which will drive wealth creation, poverty eradication, and of course, healthier and longer lives.

Your comments about any of your experiences - positive or negative - with your observations concerning education, conscientiousness, intellectual curiosity and self-discipline are welcome at Grow Youthful. I am always curious about your use of and experience with natural remedies, and your feedback is very welcome.

References

1. Lutz W, Kebede E. Education and Health: Redrawing the Preston Curve. (April 2018). Education and Health: Redrawing the Preston Curve. Population and Development Review.

2. M.G. Marmot, S. Stansfeld, C. Patel, F. North, J. Head, I. White, E. Brunner, A. Feeney, G. Davey Smith. Health inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II study. The Lancet, Volume 337, Issue 8754, 8 June 1991, Pages 1387-1393.