Garance asks me to comment on this fascinating New York Times article laying out the strong correlations between health and education. She wonders if our health care debate isn't "too focused on questions of coverage and disease treatment, rather than on actually improving the long-term health of the population through public health initiatives whose are results are not immediately apparent."
That's simultaneously true and untrue, but let's bracket it for the moment. The question of whether we could vastly improve health outcomes in this country by forcing everyone into college is an interesting one, but I'm skeptical. Given that no one thinks the dedicated study of Proust unlocks secret immortality enzymes, the question is what education is correlating with to create these outcomes. Most likely, it's a host of factors. On the individual level, less physically taxing jobs, more occupational control, more social capital, less economic stress, more personal power (feelings of control are heavily correlated with good health), etc.
More globally, higher levels of society-wide education will correlate with higher economic growth, a less menial economy, higher incomes, etc. And the article strongly implies that a primary effect of more education is that it makes people smart enough to not smoke, in which case we should pump research into smoking bans (thank you, DC!). And it should be noted that we could make everyone much healthier if we could make them Hispanic.
