Better education is associated with a longer life
The education level of a person is directly related to your health and, therefore, with the maintenance of a longer life. This is the statement that emerges from a study conducted in the United States and published in the journal PLOS ONE, whose results indicate that many deaths can be prevented by raising the educational level of people.
To reach the conclusion that the low education shortens life, the researchers first calculated the number of deaths among people who had not completed high school, and then, the deaths that would have occurred among those same people if they had the same mortality figures as the group that had completed this stage of education. The difference between both figures is the number of lives that potentially could have been saved. The conclusions were that, if in 2010, the American boys and girls who had not finished high school would have finished it, 145,243 lives could have been saved.
Educational level influences health
Although a part of the association between deaths and education can be casual, a maximum in Public Health relates the educational level of a person with his or her state of health, since thanks to a greater knowledge of diseases and their prevention it can lead to healthy behaviors, which are not adopted when they are unknown above all in terms of nutrition and drugs.
Specifically, the study has revealed that people with a higher educational level, carry a diet healthy, they exercise more regularly and consume less drugs. And in addition, in case of illness, the patient presents a greater continuity in the treatments prescribed by the doctors.
Education saves healthcare costs
If the conclusions of this study were put into practice in Spain, Social Security would save many costs, taking into account that today the percentage of young people who stop studying after finishing ESO is 21.9%, a figure that doubles the average of the EU.
All over the world, the reality is that 10% of children do not receive even the most basic education, that is, primary education. According to UNICEF, if all the children in the world could simply learn to read, 171 million fewer people would live in absolute poverty.
Marisol Nuevo Espín
