Attending a private school or a reputable university is linked to better health in midlife, according to a new study.
- Private school and/or college education at a reputable institution may be linked to better health in midlife.
- A private school secondary education was associated with better cardiometabolic health outcomes.
- Attending a reputable university was linked to better cognitive function.
If you attended a private school as a child or studied at a reputable university, you are more likely to be healthy in your 40s, according to a study published in the journal Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
School quality linked to health while growing up
To determine whether other aspects of education beyond educational attainment could impact students’ future health, researchers looked at data from the 1970 British Cohort Study. It followed a representative group of people born in the UK during a single week that year. It involved 17,196 babies at the start. They were followed up several times between the ages of 5 and 51.
In 2016-2018, the cohort included 12,368 participants aged between 46 and 48. 8,581 of them were interviewed. The researchers analyzed their levels of education, the institutions they attended, the diplomas they obtained, but also the learning environment in their home when they were children, their family’s cultural leisure activities, the involvement of their parents in their schooling, etc.
Their health was also assessed: BMI, blood pressure, pulse, grip strength, balance, memory and even verbal fluency.
Results: A high school education at a private school was associated with better cardiometabolic health outcomes at midlife than a high school education at a public school. In addition, attending a reputable university was linked to better cognitive function. However, those who did not graduate had an increased risk of poorer health compared with those who had attended a university. “of normal status”.
Education and health: the establishment could explain the link
The researchers acknowledge that their study focused on a British generation that was educated in the 1980s and 1990s and in a context of significant education reforms. As such, the generalisability of the data to the present day is somewhat uncertain. However, they note that their findings suggest that school type may contribute to understanding the links between education and health.
“Furthermore, if this association is causal, future policies aimed at reducing health inequalities could consider the quality of education as well as achievement. This is particularly important given the increase in college attendance, in which other aspects of the educational experience may better distinguish health inequalities.”explain the authors in a communicated.