Refining the Association among Race, Education, and Health

Michael H. Esposito, University of Washington

Through multiple mechanisms, completing an additional year of education returns an individual measurable health benefits. For it's multifaceted influence, education is often positioned as an effective means through which to act on population health. In response to this idea, researchers have explored how the education-health association varies across sub-populations in the United States. In the spirit of that approach, this paper asks, “do the health benefits returned from education vary between blacks and whites?” Through use of methods which allow a proper look at this relationship, this paper finds evidence that the nature of the education-health association does vary somewhat across racial groups.