14 DAY TRIAL // No doubt that people today won't die from each infection, and adding this to a higher life quality, it appears logical that life expectancy has raised worldwide. But a new study carried out at the Harvard Medical School and Harvard University, and published in the journal "Health Affairs," shows that some are more equal than others: those who finished a college live significantly longer than those who ended studying once high school was over.
"We like to think that as we as a country get healthier, everyone benefits. Here we've found that you can have a rising tide that only lifts half the boats-and the ones lifted are the ones doing better to begin with," said co-author David Cutler, dean for social sciences at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.
Most researches focused on life expectancy connected to socio-economic status. The new study focused on Whites and non-Hispanic Blacks, using two separate data sets, one from 1981-1988, and the other from the period 1990-2000. Both data sets showed that life expectancy was increased for individuals who had at least college education, compared with those with 12 years of study or less, on whose case life expectancy stagnated.
For the '80s, better educated persons had an increase in life expectancy of about 1.5 years, while the less educated individuals of just 0.5 years. For the '90s, educated people added 1.6 years to their life expectancy, while in the case of less educated people life expectancy did not change. Moreover, gender analysis showed that women had the least increase in life expectancy. Less educated women, no matter the race, even displayed a slight decrease in life expectancy at age 25. Overall, by 2000, better education at age 25 was correlated with a live expectancy of 82 years; while less educated people had a life expectancy of 75.
"Although improvements in health often occur more rapidly within some groups than others, it is surprising that life expectancy remained so flat for the less educated during periods when others enjoyed dramatic gains in longevity," said Meara.
Smoking was the main cause of death. It directly caused two deadly diseases, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (like chronic bronchitis and emphysema). They were the cause of 20% of the deaths in the '90s. Smoking also contributed to other various death-inducing illnesses, like heart disease and other types of cancer.
Other observations show that less educated people are less likely to give up smoking, compared to the more educated people, and they are more exposed to brain degenerative issues, like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Other death causes, not related to smoking, were diseases of the heart, non-lung cancers, stroke, and accidents.