Mortality Attributable to Low Levels of Education in the United States

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Conflicts of Interest

Identified Weaknesses

Rating Explanation

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Paper Summary

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Education Matters: Lower Education = Earlier Death (and It's Getting Worse)

Based on U.S. mortality data from 1986-2006, an estimated 145,243 deaths in 2010 alone could be attributed to adults not having a high school degree. Much of the link between education and mortality appears causal, with the impact greatest for cardiovascular disease, and a growing gap between the least and most educated over time. Hundreds of thousands of fewer deaths would occur annually if everyone had at least a Bachelor's degree.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

None identified.

Identified Weaknesses

Missing confounders

The data did not include all possible factors that could explain the link between education and mortality, like childhood health and genetic predispositions, which could overestimate the impact of education.

Unmeasured quality of education

Although they adjusted for race and analyzed data by birth cohort, they could not fully account for potential differences in quality of education across times and locations.

Rating Explanation

This is a strong study using a large, nationally-representative dataset with appropriate statistical methods. However, it suffers from some limitations regarding omitted confounders and unmeasured quality of education, preventing a perfect score.

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