SynthesisTropical medicine & international health : TM & IH2019
Evidence for causal links between education and maternal and child health: systematic review.
Synthesis in Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 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
75 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 186 citations in OpenAlex.
- Utilization of maternal healthcare services in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Leveraging multisectoral approach to understand the determinants of childhood stunting in Rwanda: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Parental education and inequalities in child mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis.Lancet (London, England) · 2021Pooled it
- Maternal health in rural Pakistan after USAID funding cuts: emerging risks and policy implications.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2026Article
- NeuroDev: etiology and experience of neurodevelopmental disorders in Kenya and South Africa.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Abortion policy, political control, and maternal and infant mortality in the United States: a cross-sectional ecological study.Reproductive health · 2026Article
- Article
- Where Women Give Birth Is Changing in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence From 30 Countries Using DHS Data.Journal of pregnancy · 2026Article
- Educational attainment and chronic HIV treatment adherence in southern and eastern Africa.PloS one · 2026Article
- Maternal functioning status in the first year after childbirth and its predictors in Iranian mothers.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- 'You don't need schooling-just take the pills and don't stop.': Pathways between formal education and chronic HIV care in Malawi.SSM. Qualitative research in health · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic and maternal mental health factors associated with the parenting and development of children in an early childhood promotion program: analysis via structural equation modeling.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The maternal and child mortality in the Middle East and North Africa between 2000 and 2020: the role of health financing.Global health research and policy · 2025Article
- Poverty and women's health in Somaliland: examining body mass index and maternal mortality.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Receipt of Audiological Threshold Testing Among Infants Not Passing Their Newborn Hearing Screen.Perspectives of the ASHA special interest groups · 2025Article
- Ethnic disparities in the association between maternal socioeconomic status and childhood anemia in Peru: a nationwide multiyear cross-sectional study.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2025Article
- Prevalence and Determinants of the Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure in Children Under Five Years in Bangladesh: Insights From a National Survey.Food science & nutrition · 2025Article
- Effect of Women's Education, Information and Communication Technologies, and Income on Maternal Mortality: Evidence from BRIICS Countries.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Understanding Health Inequality, Disparity and Inequity in Africa: A Rapid Review of Concepts, Root Causes, and Strategic Solutions.Public health challenges · 2025Review
- Spatial patterns and temporal trends in stillbirth, neonatal, and infant mortality: an exploration of country-level data from 2000 to 2021.Journal of global health · 2025Article
15 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 at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveNumerous studies have documented an inverse association between years of schooling attained, particularly by women, and reduced maternal, infant and child mortality. However, if factors affecting educational attainment - many of which are unobservable, e.g. motivation and genetic endowment - also affect the likelihood of engaging in behaviours that enhance health, then assumed effects of schooling will be inflated in analyses that do not address this endogeneity. This systematic review assesses evidence for a causal link between education and maternal and child health in low and middle-income countries.
methodsEligible studies controlled for observable and unobservable factors affecting both education and health. Reported effects were converted into partial correlations. When possible, we also conducted meta-analyses to estimate mean effects by outcome.
resultsOf 4952 papers identified, 16 met the inclusion criteria. The 15 child health papers examined neonatal, infant and child mortality, stunting and wasting. Significant effects of education on infant and child health were observed for 30 of 33 models that did not account for endogeneity. In contrast, only 18 of 46 effects were significant in models that addressed endogeneity. Notably, for only one outcome -child mortality measured dichotomously -was the effect of maternal educational attainment significant in a meta-analysis. The one maternal morbidity paper found significant effects for the two preventable outcomes considered.
conclusionWhile we find evidence for a causal link between education and health, effects are weaker in models that address endogeneity compared to naïve models that do not account for unobservable factors affecting both education and health. Advances in women's educational outcomes have undoubtedly played a role in improving health in many settings; however, the effect is not as strong as some researchers and advocates have claimed.
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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.