ArticleAmerican journal of public health2007
Giving everyone the health of the educated: an examination of whether social change would save more lives than medical advances.
Article in American journal of public health, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Multisectoral interventions for urban health in Africa: a mixed-methods systematic review.Global health action · 2024Pooled it
- The social determinants of mental health disorders among women with infertility: a systematic review.BMC women's health · 2023Pooled it
- Educational attainment and obesity: a systematic review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2013Pooled it
- Trial
- Patient Preferences for Addressing Unhealthy Behaviors, Mental Health Challenges, and Social Needs in Primary Care.Journal of primary care & community healthTrial
- The use of an innovative clinical decision support system focused on psychosocial vulnerabilities during pregnancy: the Born in Belgium Professionals Platform.BMC health services research · 2026Observational
- Social vulnerability, access to care, and outcomes in hemophilia.Blood vessels, thrombosis & hemostasis · 2026Article
- Exploring the cost-effectiveness and optimization strategies of nursing caring for children and older adults: a perspective.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Structural Determinants of School Discipline: Examining State-Level Racial Bias and Neighborhood Opportunity.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2025Article
- Teacher unfairness in adolescence, educational attainment, and adult Health: The role of school- and individual-level perceptions tested in a national cohort study.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Can High and Consistent School-Related Protective Factors Prevent Cannabis Use Among American Indian Middle School Students?The Journal of school health · 2024Article
- Postpartum medication for opioid use disorder outcomes associated with prenatal treatment and neighborhood-level social determinants.American journal of obstetrics & gynecology MFM · 2023Article
- Skill building in early care and education programs.The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · 2023Article
- Alcohol, drug use, and sexual risk among young African American women in North Carolina: Is educational attainment protective?Vulnerable children and youth studies · 2023Article
- Scoping Review on Interventions, Actions, and Policies Affecting Return to School and Preventing School Dropout in Primary School.International journal of preventive medicine · 2023Article
- School Disengagement Predicts Accelerated Aging among Black American Youth: Mediation by Psychological Maladjustment and Moderation by Supportive Parenting.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Variations in the association between education and self-reported health by race/ethnicity and structural racism.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Disparities by Sex in COVID-19 Risk and Related Harms Among People with Opioid Use Disorder.Journal of women's health (2002) · 2022Article
- Short communication: Relationship between social determinants and opioid use disorder treatment outcomes by gender.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2022Article
- Social Determinants of Remaining Life Expectancy at Age 60: A District-Level Analysis in Germany.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesSocial determinants of health, such as inadequate education, contribute greatly to mortality rates. We examined whether correcting the social conditions that account for excess deaths among individuals with inadequate education might save more lives than medical advances (e.g., new drugs and devices).
methodsUsing US vital statistics data for 1996 through 2002, we applied indirect standardization techniques to estimate the maximum number of averted deaths attributable to medical advances and the number of deaths that would have been averted if mortality rates among adults with lesser education had been the same as those among college-educated adults.
resultsMedical advances averted a maximum of 178193 deaths during the study period. Correcting disparities in education-associated mortality rates would have saved 1369335 lives during the same period, a ratio of 8:1.
conclusionsHigher mortality rates among individuals with inadequate education reflect a complex causal pathway and the influence of confounding variables. Formidable efforts at social change would be necessary to eliminate disparities, but the changes would save more lives than would society's current heavy investment in medical advances. Spending large sums of money on such advances at the expense of social change may be jeopardizing public health.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.