Study finds social factors can affect lifespan by up to 18 years
A recent study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Open and conducted by researchers at the University of Southern Denmark found that a combination of four social factors can increase the risk of premature death by up to 18 years. Read on to learn how these factors affect your life expectancy.
Social factors can affect lifespan by up to 18 years
According to a new study, a combination of four social factors, gender, marital status, education and race, can affect the risk of premature death by age 18. The study produced a result by analyzing data from US citizens. Life span scoring system. The study was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Open and was conducted by researchers from the University of Southern Denmark. The researchers said that while individual risks and genes partly explain differences in health and death, evidence points to how the social conditions in which people are born, grow, live and work shape one’s health.
The researchers found that although none of the four factors was more influential than the others, the more of these factors a person had, the greater their risk of death. The authors also devised a “simple scoring system” based on the four factors to identify those at highest risk. According to the scoring system, a person’s life expectancy score can range from a low of (minus) 10 to a high of eight.
For the study, the researchers took data on registered deaths and population numbers from the National Statistics and Census for the period 2015-19. In total, 54 different social groups and 12 specific causes of death were included in the analysis, 11 of which were the leading causes in the US, such as lung, breast and other cancers.
The researchers compared partial life expectancy between the ages of 30 and 90 for 54 social groups, including three types of marital status, education and race. In this study, the authors said, partial life expectancy was Life expectancy It measures expected life years between ages 30 and 90, and assumes a maximum life span of 60 years.
Their analysis found that there were “very large” differences in lifespan between the social groups studied.
For example, the authors found that white unmarried men with a high school diploma or less had the shortest partial life expectancy at 37 years, while white married women with a university degree had the longest life expectancy at 55 years. “There is an 18-year difference between minimum and maximum partial life expectancy among (social groups) from ages 30 to 90,” the authors wrote.
The researchers also found that the advantage of social groups with longevity was not as clear-cut after several factors were considered. For example, although being female was associated with a longer lifespan than being male, specific social groups with males had longer lifespans than groups with females.
“White married men with a university degree have a median life expectancy of 53.2 years, higher than that of 81 percent of all women (social groups),” the authors wrote.
In addition, the authors found that one social factor that reduces life span can be compensated for by another factor, and vice versa. For example, having a high school education or less reduces partial life expectancy by about 4 years, but being a married woman increases it by about 5 years.
According to the authors’ scoring system, being male was given zero points, while being female was given four points. Being married meant zero points, while never being married and previously married meant (minus) five and (minus) three. Having a university education was given two points, while having a high school diploma or less meant (minus) five points.
(With inputs from PTI)
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