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IJE Advance Access originally published online on September 6, 2005
International Journal of Epidemiology 2005 34(6):1409-1416; doi:10.1093/ije/dyi185
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2005; all rights reserved.

Article

Does one's own and one's spouse's education affect overall and cause-specific mortality in the elderly?

DH Jaffe*, Z Eisenbach, YD Neumark and O Manor

Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Hebrew University-Hadassah, Jerusalem, Israel

* Corresponding author. E-mail: denaj{at}md.huji.ac.il

Objectives To examine educational gradients in overall and cause-specific mortality among elderly married men and women and their spouses.

Methods Using the census-based Israel Longitudinal Mortality Study (1983–92), 13 573 married men and 6563 married women were identified who were aged 70–89 years at baseline. Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess the strength of the association between education and overall and cause-specific mortality.

Results Educational gradients for own and spouse's mortality varied by gender and cause of death. In particular, in relation to cardiovascular disease, men married to uneducated wives experienced elevated mortality risks [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.30; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.11–1.52]. Women were generally unaffected by their husband's education, except for those who died from non-breast cancer, for whom husband's low education had a harmful effect (HR = 1.98; 95% CI 1.26–3.11).

Conclusions Mortality among elderly married persons is associated with one's own and one's spouse's educational achievement. Research using partner's education as a proxy for one's own attainment may be omitting valuable information regarding these and other health risks.

Keywords Cancer, cardiovascular disease, education, elderly, mortality, spouse

Accepted 9 August 2005


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T. Huijts, C. W. S. Monden, and G. Kraaykamp
Education, Educational Heterogamy, and Self-Assessed Health in Europe: A Multilevel Study of Spousal Effects in 29 European Countries
Eur. Sociol. Rev., March 18, 2009; (2009) jcp019v1.
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