ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2015
Trends in education gradients of 'preventable' mortality: a test of fundamental cause theory.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 161 citations in OpenAlex.
- Maternal Education and Low Birth Weight in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Maternal and child health journal · 2021Pooled it
- Predictors of Past-Year Health Care Utilization Among Young Men Who Have Sex with Men Using Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Service Use.LGBT health · 2022Trial
- Generational variation and life‑course accumulation of social inequalities in all-cause mortality in Germany: a cohort-sequential study.International journal for equity in health · 2026Article
- Associations between socioeconomic status and adverse childhood experiences with multidimensional healthy aging: findings from ELSI-Brazil.BMC public health · 2026Article
- The "long arm of childhood" on mortality in older adulthood in the United States and Brazil: examining the role of educational attainment and differences by gender.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Changes in the Education-Health Gradient Within U.S. States, 1993-2019.Population research and policy review · 2026Article
- Underestimating the Relationship: Unpacking Both Socioeconomic Resources and Cognitive Function and Decline in Midlife to Later Life.Journal of health and social behavior · 2025Article
- Immigrants' diminished protective effects of parental education and employment on youth mood disorders in Sweden.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Increasing Educational Inequality in Biological Aging Among U.S. Adults Aged 50-79 From 1988-1994 to 2015-2018.Demography · 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
- Inequalities in accelerated cognitive decline: Resolving observational window bias using nested non-linear regression.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2024Article
- Educational inequalities in multimorbidity at older ages: a multi-generational population-based study.European journal of public health · 2024Article
- Immigration, Educational Attainment, and Subjective Health in the United States.Journal of mental health & clinical psychology · 2024Article
- Cognitive and Psychological Mediators of the Social Gradient in Tobacco Use Initiation Among Adolescents: Evidence from the ABCD Study.Journal of biomedical and life sciences · 2024Article
- Unequal Effect of Educational Attainment on Reducing Poverty and Welfare; Diminished Returns of American Indian/Alaska Native Populations.Journal of rehabilitation therapy · 2024Article
- One versus two biological parents with mental disorders: Relationship to educational attainment in the next generation.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Educational Disparities in Hypertension Prevalence and Blood Pressure Percentiles in the Health and Retirement Study.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2023Article
- Intergenerational educational trajectories and inequalities in longevity: A population-based study of adults born before 1965 in 14 European countries.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- Mothers' Nonstandard Work Schedules and Children's Behavior Problems: Divergent Patterns by Maternal Education.Research in social stratification and mobility · 2023Article
- Dynamic Changes in the Association Between Education and Health in the United States.The Milbank quarterly · 2023Review
9 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
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Fundamental cause theory explains persisting associations between socioeconomic status and mortality in terms of personal resources such as knowledge, money, power, prestige, and social connections, as well as disparate social contexts related to these resources. We review evidence concerning fundamental cause theory and test three central claims using the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality Files 1986-2004. We then examine cohort-based variation in the associations between a fundamental social cause of disease, educational attainment, and mortality rates from heart disease, other "preventable" causes of death, and less preventable causes of death. We further explore race/ethnic and gender variation in these associations. Overall, findings are consistent with nearly all features of fundamental cause theory. Results show, first, larger education gradients in mortality risk for causes of death that are under greater human control than for less preventable causes of death, and, second, that these gradients grew more rapidly across successive cohorts than gradients for less preventable causes. Results also show that relative sizes and cohort-based changes in the education gradients vary substantially by race/ethnicity and gender.
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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.