 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Elsie R. Pamuk, PhD, Office of Analysis, Epidemiology and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, P.O. Box 1655, Eastsound, WA 98245, 360-376-6545, ephl@orcasonline.com, Gloria Wheatcroft, MPH, Office of Analysis, Epidemiology and Health Promotion, ATPM Research Fellow, CDC-National Center for Health Statistics, 3311 Toledo Road, Hyattsville, MD 20782, and Jennifer D. Parker, PhD, Infant and Child Health Studies Branch, National Center for Health Statistics, 6525 Belcrest Road, Hyattsville, MD 20782.
The Healthy People 2010 national health objectives call for the elimination of racial and ethnic disparities in health, but provide little specific guidance on how to achieve this goal. Although the relationship between poorer health and low education levels has been extensively documented, there have been few, if any, attempts to assess the health impact of raising the educational profiles of other racial and ethnic groups to that of Asian and Pacific Islanders (API). This paper uses data collected by the National Health Interview Survey for the years 1998-2001, to calculate the age-specific and age-adjusted prevalence of fair and poor health and chronic health conditions resulting in activity limitation by level of educational attainment for non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and Hispanics. These prevalence rates are then applied to the API education distribution to produce adjusted rates for each racial and ethnic group. For all ages combined, raising education levels to those of Asian and Pacific Islanders reduces the excess prevalence of activity limitation by 4% for Non-Hispanic Whites, by 30% for Non-Hispanic Blacks, and by 46% for Hispanics. The excess prevalence of fair or poor health is reduced by 45% for Non-Hispanic Blacks, by 75% for Hispanics, and eliminated among non-Hispanic Whites. The reduction in excess morbidity achieved by raising educational attainment is greater at younger ages. The adjusted rates quantify the adverse impact of lower educational attainment on the selected health measures and indicate the potential reduction in health disparities that could be achieved by improving education distributions.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Health Disparities, Social Inequalities
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.