Education and Health: Redrawing the Preston Curve

Lutz, Wolfgang; Kebede, Endale Birhanu

doi:10.1111/padr.12141

Cited by 108 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Is it improvement of literacy that provides the tools to acquire and use targeted information ? Is it that the process of learning produces structural changes in the brain thereby enhancing cognitive abilities associated with improved health behaviours ? Is it the development of autonomy that allows individuals, especially women, to act on health knowledge and navigate health institutions ?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Mensch

Chuang

Melnikas

et al. 2019

Tropical Med Int Health

103

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Objective Numerous studies have documented an inverse association between years of schooling attained, particularly by women, and reduced maternal, infant and child mortality. However, if factors affecting educational attainment — many of which are unobservable, e.g. motivation and genetic endowment — also affect the likelihood of engaging in behaviours that enhance health, then assumed effects of schooling will be inflated in analyses that do not address this endogeneity. This systematic review assesses evidence for a causal link between education and maternal and child health in low and middle‐income countries. Methods Eligible studies controlled for observable and unobservable factors affecting both education and health. Reported effects were converted into partial correlations. When possible, we also conducted meta‐analyses to estimate mean effects by outcome. Results Of 4952 papers identified, 16 met the inclusion criteria. The 15 child health papers examined neonatal, infant and child mortality, stunting and wasting. Significant effects of education on infant and child health were observed for 30 of 33 models that did not account for endogeneity. In contrast, only 18 of 46 effects were significant in models that addressed endogeneity. Notably, for only one outcome —child mortality measured dichotomously —was the effect of maternal educational attainment significant in a meta‐analysis. The one maternal morbidity paper found significant effects for the two preventable outcomes considered. Conclusion While we find evidence for a causal link between education and health, effects are weaker in models that address endogeneity compared to naïve models that do not account for unobservable factors affecting both education and health. Advances in women's educational outcomes have undoubtedly played a role in improving health in many settings; however, the effect is not as strong as some researchers and advocates have claimed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Mensch

Chuang

Melnikas

et al. 2019

Tropical Med Int Health

103

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“…Demographers have long observed that the better educated are healthier than their less educated counterparts (Caldwell 1979;Cochrane et al 1980;Bledsoe et al 1999). An extensive literature has documented a strong association between educational attainment and reduced fertility as well as lower maternal, infant, and child mortality (Mensch et al 1985;Cleland and van Ginneken 1988;Jejeebhoy 1995;Gakidou et al 2010;Pamuk et al 2011;Bhalotra and Clarke 2013;Lutz and Kebede 2018). Time spent in school has been expected to influence each of these outcomes via developing cognitive skills, challenging traditional beliefs about disease and folk remedies, and transmitting knowledge about behaviours that can promote health.…”

Section: The Association Between Educational Attainment and Hivmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does schooling protect sexual health? The association between three measures of education and STIs among adolescents in Malawi

Mensch¹,

Grant

Soler‐Hampejsek

et al. 2019

Population Studies

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While multiple studies have documented shifting educational gradients in HIV prevalence, less attention has been given to the effect of school participation and academic skills on infection during adolescence. Using the Malawi Schooling and Adolescent Study, a longitudinal survey that followed 2,649 young people aged 14-17 at baseline from 2007 to 2013, we estimate the effect of three education variables: school enrolment, grade attainment, and academic skills-numeracy and Chichewa literacy-on herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) and HIV incidence using interval-censored survival analysis. We find that grade attainment is significantly associated with lower rates of both HSV-2 and HIV among girls, and is negatively associated with HSV-2 but not HIV among boys. School enrolment and academic skills are not significantly associated with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) for boys or girls in our final models. Efforts to encourage school progression in high-prevalence settings in sub-Saharan Africa could well reduce, or at least postpone, acquisition of STIs.Population Studies, 2020 Vol. 74, No. 2, 241-261, https://doi.

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“…Being one of the four main components of human capital, more experience leads to a larger human capital stock [18]. It is important to note that the other education-related factors such as health practices impact life expectancy, too, although not visualized in Figure 4, making the education level the most important determinant of life expectancy [46]. Exposure to PM2.5 air pollution is one of the current and future natural capital indicators (Figure 1) and reported to have an important effect on the health and cognitive development of children [16,47].…”

Section: Human Capital From a Health Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Systems Thinking to Understand National Well-Being from a Human Capital Perspective

Eker

Ilmola‐Sheppard

2020

Sustainability

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Well-being has become an important policy goal to replace gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of national progress. Several multidimensional metrics and indicators of well-being have been developed mostly based on the four-capital model that includes natural, economic, human and social capital. These multidimensional measures of well-being, however, are highly categorical and lack a systems perspective that focuses on underlying mechanisms of the metrics and the interconnections between them. This study aims at bringing a systems thinking approach to understanding and measuring national well-being, particularly from a human capital perspective. For this purpose, we employ a qualitative systems mapping approach and identify the direct or indirect relationships between the well-being indicators related to human capital. The results show that the human capital system is governed by several reinforcing feedback loops through economic progress, health and life expectancy, which gives a central role to human capital to enhance well-being. There are balancing loops, however, that may have adverse effects on human capital formation and well-being, for instance through migration and ageing. Future studies can focus on the other three subsystems in the four-capital model, and on quantifying the relationships between different dimensions of well-being.

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Education and Health: Redrawing the Preston Curve

Cited by 108 publications

References 39 publications

Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review

Does schooling protect sexual health? The association between three measures of education and STIs among adolescents in Malawi

Systems Thinking to Understand National Well-Being from a Human Capital Perspective

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