Abstract
More education is associated with healthier smoking and drinking behaviors. Most analyses of effects of education focus on mean levels. Few studies have compared variance in health-related behaviors at different levels of education or analyzed how education impacts underlying genetic and environmental sources of health-related behaviors. This study explored these influences. In a 2002 postal questionnaire, 21,522 members of the Danish Twin Registry, born during 1931-1982, reported smoking and drinking habits. The authors used quantitative genetic models to examine how these behaviors' genetic and environmental variances differed with level of education, adjusting for birth-year effects. As expected, more education was associated with less smoking, and average drinking levels were highest among the most educated. At 2 standard deviations above the mean educational level, variance in smoking and drinking was about one-third that among those at 2 standard deviations below, because fewer highly educated people reported high levels of smoking or drinking. Because shared environmental variance was particularly restricted, one explanation is that education created a culture that discouraged smoking and heavy drinking. Correlations between shared environmental influences on education and the health behaviors were substantial among the well-educated for smoking in both sexes and drinking in males, reinforcing this notion.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | American Journal of Epidemiology |
| Vol/bind | 173 |
| Udgave nummer | 1 |
| Sider (fra-til) | 55-63 |
| Antal sider | 9 |
| ISSN | 0002-9262 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 1 jan. 2011 |