Key to longevity: stay in school

Staying in school might help you live longer according to a new Statistics Canada study on mortality rates.
The Canadian census mortality follow-up study shows that between 1991 and 2001, the lowest rates of deaths per 1,000 people, per year, were among the university educated, professionals, managers and individuals with high incomes.
Conversely, people without a high school diploma, the unemployed, those with unskilled jobs and people in the lowest income brackets had the highest death rates.
When it came to men, only 51 per cent of the poorest one-fifth of Canadians were predicted to survive past the age of 75, compared with 72 per cent of men in the wealthiest one-fifth.
For women the percentages were 72 per cent and 84 per cent, in favor of those in the wealthiest one fifth.
For both men and women, with the exception of those 85 and older, mortality rates were the highest amid the uneducated. However, as education levels increased, mortality rates decreased proportionally.
According to Concordia sociology professor Mary Lee Maurel, although health care is free in Canada, individuals who aren’t as educated and those who have lower incomes tend to not take full advantage of the services available to them.
“They go to the doctor only when they are really sick, instead of going for annual checkups and follow-ups,” said Maurel.
Rob Rainer, a poverty advocate and the executive director of the National Anti Poverty Organization in Canada said he believes that the Canadian health care system is flawed.
“Our primary health care is really dealing with health problems once they’ve occurred, but the main focus should be on prevention and preventative health care,” said Rainer.
For Rainer and Maurel, one of the most important forms of preventative health care is eating right and getting enough exercise. However people with lower incomes and less education have less information about healthy living.
As well a healthy lifestyle can be more expensive. According to Rainer, Canadians living below the poverty line don’t have the money to live a healthy lifestyle, and with many of Canada’s poorest people working more than one job also don’t have the time.
Shelly Reuter, a sociology professor at Concordia, said it’s shocking to see just how many uneducated low-income women skip standard procedures like mammograms.
Reuter believes that people with higher educations have access to better and safer jobs, which has a positive effect on their overall mental and physical health, and in turn increases their life spans.
Rainer said not much is being done to help lower income people get better jobs.
“It’s getting harder and harder for people without higher education who are living in poverty or in relative poverty to break into the job markets,” he said.