Tracking Health Inequalities from High School to Midlife

Abstract

Educational gradients in health status, morbidity, and mortality are well established, but which aspects of schooling produce those gradients is only partially understood. We draw on newly available data from the midlife follow-up of the High School and Beyond sophomore cohort to analyze the relationship between students’ level of coursework in high school and their long-term health outcomes. We additionally evaluate the mediating roles of skill development, postsecondary attendance and degree attainment, and occupational characteristics. We find that students who took a medium- to high-level course of study in high school have better self-reported health and physical functioning in midlife, even net of family background, adolescent health, baseline skills, and school characteristics. The association partially operates through pathways into postsecondary education. Our findings have implications for both educational policy and research on the educational gradient in health.

A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement

“…The National Study of Learning Mindsets showed that a low-cost treatment, delivered in less than an hour, attained a substantial proportion of the effects on grades of the most effective rigorously evaluated adolescent interventions of any cost or duration in the literature within the pre-registered group of lower-achieving students. Moreover, the intervention produced gains in the consequential outcome of advanced mathematics course-taking for students overall, which is meaningful because the rigor of mathematics courses taken in high school strongly predicts later educational attainment 8,9 , and educational attainment is one of the leading predictors of longevity and health 38,42 . The finding that the growth mindset intervention could redirect critical academic outcomes to such an extent—with no training of teachers; in an effectiveness trial conducted in a population-generalizable sample; with data collected by an independent research company using repeatable procedures; with data processed by a second independent research company; and while adhering to a comprehensive pre-registered analysis plan—is a major advance.…”

“…The GPAs are a theoretically relevant outcome because grades are commonly understood to reflect sustained motivation, rather than only prior knowledge. It is also a practically relevant outcome because, as noted, GPA is a strong predictor of adult educational attainment, health and well-being, even when controlling for high school test scores 38 .…”

“…Mathematics and science are relevant because a popular belief in the United States links mathematics and science learning to ‘raw’ or ‘innate’ abilities 37 —a view that the growth mindset intervention seeks to correct. In addition, success in mathematics and science strongly predicts long-term economic welfare and well-being 38 . Analyses of outcomes for mathematics and science supported the same conclusions ( B = 0.10 for mathematics and science GPAs compared to B = 0.10 for core GPAs; Extended Data Tables 1–3).…”

Longitudinal employment trajectories and health in middle life: Insights from linked administrative and survey data

“…Individuals are considered in education from age 15 until they attain their highest degree (the year when the highest level of education was attained is recorded in the EU-SILC). This specific aspect is especially valuable because of the well-established educational gradient in health status, morbidity, and mortality (Carroll et al 2017): for Italy, no other available data source based on INPS registers contains information on workers' education, so this feature makes the AD-SILC particularly suitable for studying differential health outcomes.…”

Which Aspects of Education Matter for Early Adult Mortality? Evidence from the High School and Beyond Cohort

“…Course taking in high school provides important indicators of exposure to abstract concepts and knowledge. An important indicator of exposure to general principles of analytic knowledge and abstraction is completion of advanced mathematics coursework; indeed, previous work has shown that advanced mathematics coursework predicts health outcomes (Carroll et al 2017). People who have taken more science, health, and related courses have presumably had greater exposure to concepts related to preventing and curing disease.…”