In a groundbreaking new study, researchers from the Cornell University in the United States used rich microdata from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth in 1979, to analyze the correlation between high school completion and the two leading preventable causes of death - smoking and obesity. Their findings, which are to be published in the forthcoming July issue of the Journal of Labor Economics, reveal that, high school graduates are significantly less likely to smoke than non-graduates and GED recipients.
'Many previous studies of the schooling-health link focus on general measures of health outcomes. Our study instead focuses on key health behaviors as specific pathways by which schooling can lead to differences in health outcomes,' explain Donald Kenkel, Dean Lillard, and Alan Mathios. 'The results suggest that completing high school yields large apparent health returns in the form of less smoking. Both men and women who report completing high school are much less likely to currently smoke.'
For example, 47% of male high school dropouts in the researchers' sample are current smokers, while smoking among male high school completers is about 26 percentage points lower. Additionally, those who completed high school and were once smokers are more likely to have quit.
(Source:Eurekalert)
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