Do biological measures mediate the relationship between education and health: A comparative study
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2011Author
Goldman, Noreen
Turra, Cassio M.
Rosero Bixby, Luis
Weir, David
Crimmins, Eileen
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Despite a myriad of studies examining the relationship between socioeconomic status and health
outcomes, few have assessed the extent to which biological markers of chronic disease account for social
disparities in health. Studies that have examined this issue have generally been based on surveys in wealthy
countries that include a small set of clinicalmarkers of cardiovascular disease. The availability of recent data
from nationally representative surveys of older adults in Costa Rica and Taiwan that collected a rich set of
biomarkers comparable to those in a recent US survey permits us to explore these associations across
diverse populations. Similar regression models were estimated on three data setsethe Social Environment
and Biomarkers of Aging Study in Taiwan, the Costa Rican Study on Longevity and Healthy Aging, and the
Health and Retirement Study in the USA e in order to assess (1) the strength of the associations between
educational attainment and a broad range of biomarkers; and (2) the extent to which these biomarkers
account for the relationships between education and two measures of health status (self-rated health,
functional limitations) in older populations. The estimates suggest non-systematic and weak associations
between education and high risk biomarker values in Taiwan and Costa Rica, in contrast to generally
negative and significant associations in the US, especially among women. The results also reveal negligible
or modest contributions of the biomarkers to educational disparities in the health outcomes. The findings
are generally consistent with previous research suggesting stronger associations between socioeconomic
status and health in wealthy countries than in middle-income countries and may reflect higher levels of
social stratification in the US. With access to an increasing number of longitudinal biosocial surveys,
researchers may be better able to distinguish true variations in the relationship between socioeconomic
status and health across different settings from methodological differences.
External link to the item
10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.11.004
artículo (arbitrado)--Universidad de costa Rica, instituto de Investigaciones en Salud. 2011. Este documento es privado debido a limitaciones de derechos de autor.
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