Education and health: evidence on adults with diabetes

Abstract

Although the education-health relationship is well documented, pathways through which education influences health are not well understood. This study uses data from a 2003-4 cross sectional supplemental survey of respondents to the longitudinal Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who had been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus to assess effects of education on health and mechanisms underlying the relationship. The supplemental survey provides rich detail on use of personal health care services (e.g., adherence to guidelines for diabetes care) and personal attributes which are plausibly largely time invariant and systematically related to years of schooling completed, including time preference, self-control, and self-confidence. Educational attainment, as measured by years of schooling completed, is systematically and positively related to time to onset of diabetes, and conditional on having been diagnosed with this disease on health outcomes, variables related to efficiency in health production, as well as use of diabetes specialists. However, the marginal effects of increasing educational attainment by a year are uniformly small. Accounting for other factors, including child health and child socioeconomic status which could affect years of schooling completed and adult health, adult cognition, income, and health insurance, and personal attributes from the supplemental survey, marginal effects of educational attainment tend to be lower than when these other factors are not included in the analysis, but they tend to remain statistically significant at conventional levels.

Educational Disparities in Distribution of Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Quality of Care in Korean Adults: Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey IV

“…However, a consistent difference was apparent in education related to disease. It is already well known that education takes an important role in diabetic care 23). Although the guidelines recommend that all new patients receive "diabetes self-management education", only fifteen percent of participants answered that they have received diabetic education, and our results suggest that fewer among the lowest educated group receive education about disease.…”

Time preferences, diabetes self‐management behaviours and outcomes: a systematic review

“…Similarly to the study by Ayyagari et al . , an ordinal measure of the discount rate identified time preferences. No association was found between the implied discount rate and use of recommended care, control of diabetes, general health or HbA 1c .…”

Regional differences in the incidence of self-reported type 2 diabetes in Germany: results from five population-based studies in Germany (DIAB-CORE Consortium)

“…Differences in health and health-related behaviour are probably related to differences in the distribution of education, unemployment, income and private property among the federal states, cities or municipalities 8. The educational level demonstrated an association with the time to onset of T2DM 23 24. Both individual socioeconomic status (measured by educational level and equivalent income) as well as regional deprivation were associated with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes and obesity in Germany 23.…”