Education and public health: Mutual challenges worldwide

Comparative Education Review

Volumn 49, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 437-451

  Bloom, David E ^a,b  

^a Department of Economics and Demography ^*  (United States)

^b HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 27744490999     PISSN: 00104086     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/454370     Document Type: Editorial

References (43)

1. One of the more useful and extensive studies to date is United Nations, World Population Monitoring 2003: Population, Education and Development (New York: United Nations, 2005). This work reviews some relevant studies and provides data on education, health, and development. The report asserts that education has been found to be closely associated with better overall health and that this association is supported consistently, using a range of indicators. In general, the report considers education to be a lever for improving health, although the exact relationships that underlie this connection are acknowledged to be unclear. For children's health, the education of their mothers is particularly important.
2. David E. Bloom, "Measuring Progress: Facts and Data on Universal Basic and Secondary Education" (occasional paper, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA, 2005).
3. Preamble to the constitution of the World Health Organization, as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, June 19-22, 1946; signed on July 22, 1946, by the representatives of 61 states (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, 100) and entered into force on April 7, 1948.
4. United Nations Statistics Division Millennium Indicators Database, http://millenniumindicators .un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp.
5. David E. Bloom, David Canning, and Jaypee Sevilla, The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2002);
6. David E. Bloom and David Canning, "Contraception and the Celtic Tiger," Economic and Social Review 34 (Winter 2003): 229-47.
7. Manuel R. Agosín, David E. Bloom, Georges Chapelier, and Jagdish Saigal, eds., Solving the Riddle of Globalization and Development (London: Routledge, 2006), forthcoming.
8. This argument, of course, is based on the idea that parents will act in their children's long-term interests. This assumption, generally reasonable, underlies much thinking about development. However, there is a possibility for this assumption to be off the mark in some cases, since parents' interests are not identical to those of their children, and they may choose, or be forced, to make decisions based on their own shorter-term interests, which could diminish the effect of good health on education.
9. A useful review of the evidence about maternal education and child health is Robert A. LeVine, "Women's Schooling, Patterns of Fertility, and Child Survival," Educational Researcher 16 (December 1987): 21-22.
10. A more recent study, focusing on a particular country, is Daniel Buor, "Mothers' Education and Childhood Mortality in Ghana," Health Policy 64 (June 2003): 297-309.
11. J. C. Caldwell, "Education as a Factor in Mortality Decline: An Examination of Nigerian Data," Population Studies 33, no. 3 (1979): 395-414.
12. "Ministries of education increasingly recognise that education is an effective 'social vaccine' against HIV/AIDS, but that the impact of the epidemic is compromising their ability to deliver this vaccine"; Donald Bundy of the World Bank, quoted at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/CSO/ Resources/Learning_to_Survive_by_Oxfam.pdf.
13. Eric P. Bettinger, "Random Experiments in Education: Surveying the Evidence" (occasional paper, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA, 2005).
14. However, such trials can be quite costly to conduct, and they sometimes raise difficult ethical issues. Denying a control group of children access to schooling is not politically or morally feasible. Similarly, offering an intervention to only one group of students or one set of schools, when that intervention seems likely to be beneficial, is also very problematic. This ethical problem is mitigated, however, by the consideration that if no students receive the intervention, none of them will be better off, nor will anyone learn whether the intervention is definitely effective or cost-effective. Obviously, such trials must therefore be carefully designed and reviewed before they are initiated.
15. Michael Kremer, "The Role of Randomized Evaluations in Making Progress towards Universal Basic and Secondary Education" (occasional paper, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, MA, 2005);
16. Robert Moffitt, "Remarks on the Analysis of Causal Relationships in Population Research," Demography 42 (1): 91-108.
17. Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer, "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities," Econometrica 72, no. 1 (2004): 159-217;
18. G. J. Bobonis, E. Miguel, and C. P. Sharma, "Iron Deficiency Anemia and School Participation," Poverty Action Lab Paper no. 7 (Poverty Action Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2004);
19. C. Nokes, S. M. Grantham-McGregor, A. W. Sawyer, E. S. Cooper, B. A. Robinson, and D. A. P. Bundy, "Moderate to Heavy Infections of Trichuris trichiura Affect Cognitive Function in Jamaican School Children," Parasitology 104 (June 1992): 539-47;
20. Christel Vermeersch and Michael Kremer, "School Meals, Educational Achievement, and School Competition: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation," World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 3523 (World Bank, Washington, DC, November 2004), http://ssrn.com/ abstract=667881;
21. Rumona Dickson, Shally Awasthi, Paula Williamson, Colin Demellweek, and Paul Garner, "Effects of Treatment for Intestinal Helminth Infection on Growth and Cognitive Performance in Children: Systematic Review of Randomised Trials," BMJ 320 (June 24, 2000): 1697-1701.
22. For example, Bobonis et al., in "Iron Deficiency Anemia and School Participation," found that delivering iron supplementation and deworming drugs to children attending preschool reduced absenteeism by one-fifth in the first 5 months of the program. However, these authors also found that they could not maintain randomized groups for comparison when they extended the study over a further year, as parents who were aware of the program directed their children into treatment schools.
23. Harold Alderman, Jere Behrman, Victor Lavy, and Rekha Menon, "Child Nutrition, Child Health, and School Enrollment: A Longitudinal Analysis," World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 1700 (World Bank, Washington, DC, 1997);
24. A. Haworth, K. Kalumba, P. Kwapa, E. Van Praag, and C. Hamavhwa, "The Impact of HIV/AIDS in Zambia: General Socioeconomic Impact" (paper presented to the Seventh International Conference on AIDS, Florence, 1991);
25. UNICEF, The Progress of Nations Report 2000 (Geneva: UNICEF, 2000).
26. M. C. Berger and J. P. Leigh, "Schooling, Self-Selection, and Health," Journal of Human Resources 24, no. 3 (1989): 433-55;
27. Duncan Thomas, "Like Father, Like Son; Like Mother, Like Daughter: Parental Resources and Child Height," Journal of Human Resources 29 (Autumn 1994): 950-88;
28. Donald S. Kenkel, "Health Behavior, Health Knowledge, and Schooling," Journal of Political Economy 99 (April 1991): 287-305
29. ; Robert A. LeVine, "Women's Schooling, Patterns of Fertility, and Child Survival," Educational Researcher 16, no. 9 (1987): 21-27;
30. C. Lloyd, C. E. Kaufman, and P. Hewett, "The Spread of Primary Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for Fertility Change," Population and Development Review 26, no. 3 (2000): 483-515;
31. S. J. Adams, "Educational Attainment and Health: Evidence from a Sample of Older Adults," Education Economics 10, no. 1 (2002): 97-109;
32. Janet Currie and Enrico Moretti, "Mother's Education and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from College Openings and Longitudinal Data," Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 4 (November 2003): 1495-1532;
33. Shari S. Bassuk, Lisa F. Berkman, and Benjamin C. Amick III, "Socioeconomic Status and Mortality among the Elderly: Findings from Four U.S. Communities," American Journal of Epidemiology 155, no. 6 (2002): 520-33;
34. Paul Glewwe, "How Does Schooling of Mothers Improve Child Health? Evidence from Morocco," Living Standards Measurement Study Working Paper no. 128 (World Bank, Washington, DC, 1997);
35. R. M. Nayga Jr., "Effect of Schooling on Obesity: Is Health Knowledge a Moderating Factor?" Education Economics 9 (August 2001): 129-37;
36. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), "Impact of HIV and Sexual Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: A Review Update," report (UNAIDS, Geneva, 1998).
37. Adriana Lleras-Muney, "The Relationship between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," Review of Economic Studies 72, no. 1 (2005): 189-221.
38. Phillip Farrell and Victor R. Fuchs, "Schooling and Health: The Cigarette Connection," Journal of Health Economics 1 (December 1982): 217-30;
39. N. M. Beasley, A. Hall, A. M. Tomkins, C. Donnelly, P. Ntimbwa, J. Kivuga, C. M. Kihamia, W. Lorri, and D. A. Bundy, "The Health of Enrolled and Non-enrolled Children of School Age in Tanga, Tanzania," Acta Tropica 76 (2000): 223-29;
40. James R. Hargreaves and Judith R. Glynn, "Educational Attainment and HIV Infection in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review," Tropical Medicine and International Health 7, no. 6 (2002): 489-98;
41. K. Fylkesnes, R. M. Musonda, K. Kasumba, Z. Ndhlovu, F. Mluanda, L. Kaetano, C. C. Chipaila, "The HIV Epidemic in Zambia: Socio-Demographic Prevalence Patterns and Indications of Trends among Childbearing Women," AIDS 11, no. 3 (1997): 339-45;
42. J. Vandemoortele and E. Delamonica, "The 'Education Vaccine' against HIV/AIDS," Current Issues in Comparative Education 3, no. 1 (2000), http://www.tc.columbia.edu/cice/articles/jved131.htm.
43. I wish to offer a warm thank-you to the many reviewers of the papers submitted for this special issue. Their forthrightness and perspicacity were invaluable. These reviewers are Alaka Basu, Srilatha Batliwala, Michael Bennish, Stefano Bertozzi, Indu Bhushan, Melissa Binder, Donald Bundy, David Canning, Richard Cash, John Casterline, Mukesh Chawla, Julie DaVanzo, Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue, David Evans, Tim Evans, Arline Geronimus, Suzanne Grant-Lewis, Michel Guillot, Emily Hannum, Allan Hill, Shireen Jejeebhoy, Emmanuel Jimenez, Sanders Korenman, Ruth Levine, Yuanli Liu, Cynthia Lloyd, Nora Lustig, Colin Maclay, Sangeetha Madhavan, Andrew Mason, Narciso Matos, Thomas Merrick, Marc Mitchell, Juan Moreno, A. K. Nandakumar, Suet-ling Pong, Jaime Saavedra, Janet Schofield, Jaypee Sevilla, Bonnie Shepard, Daniel Tarantola, Kate Taylor, Alexandria Valerio, Speciosa Wandira, Mary Waters, Abdo Yazbeck, Stephen Younger, and Winnie Yip.