INTREC - INDEPTH Training & Research Centres of Excellence

SDH Framework

Education, Socioeconomic Status, and Health

This class will cover the following themes:

1.  Education in the context of other domains of socioeconomic status

1. Education as a determinant of income, occupation, and wealth
2. Intergenerational transfers/ transforming education to other resources

2. Summary of evidence on education inequalities in health from observational literature
3. Why would education affect health?
4. Key hypothesized mechanisms (e.g., cognitive skills such as literacy; soft skills such as self-efficacy; labor market outcomes; marriage/friendship networks)
5. Implications for measurement of education (years vs degrees; quality of schooling; ages of schooling exposure)
6. Limitations of observational evidence

1. definition of causal effect
2. importance of evaluating causation for public health improvements
3. reasons the observed association does not match the causal effect
4. most plausible alternative explanations for the association between education and health
5. selection into education based on IQ or parental resources
6. reverse causation from early health indicators into education
7. methods that have been used to rule out other explanations
8. evidence on genetic determinants of education

7. Other sources of evidence on education effects

1. theoretically based tests re functional form of the association
2. Social policy changes as natural experiments
3. Randomized experiments in educational approaches (e.g., class size)