Live Longer: Stay in School

Posted by on January 03, 2007

Across the globe, longevity has been linked to a number of different factors, but the New York Times reports that only one has been found to have a significant effect worldwide: school. "The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income." Dr. James Smith, a health economist at the RAND Corporation, says, ?Giving people more Social Security income, or less for that matter, will not really affect people?s health. It is a good thing to do for other reasons but not for health....[Health insurance, too,] is vastly overrated in the policy debate.? What may make the biggest difference, the article concludes, "is keeping young people in school."