Health behavior, life-years loss and the educational gradient

Abstract

Our objective is to explore how educational differences in health behavior may impact life expectancy. Cross-sectional data from the Tromsø Study conducted in 2015/2016 was used to explore the relationship between education and reported lifestyle behavior. Published estimates of life-year losses associated with health behaviors were combined with the participants’ health behavior to give personal estimates of life expectancy loss. Then, we assessed the distribution of this life loss across education levels to give an indication of the social gradient in loss of life expectancy due to health behaviors as reported in 2015/2016. Considerable educational inequalities were observed in lifestyle behavior in the Tromsø Study. According to the published literature, smoking was found to be associated with the largest life-loss, followed by low physical activity and obesity. The number of respondents following a healthy lifestyle and thereby facing the smallest loss of life expectancy increased with every level of education, whereas the proportion of individuals that did not adhere to healthy lifestyle recommendations and with the largest potential life loss decreased with educational level. There is a clear education gradient in the adherence of health behavior recommendations that could lead to educational differences in life expectancy.