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Cited by 277

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 44 of the 44 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Giving Everyone the Health of the Educated: An Examination of Whether Social Change Would Save More Lives Than Medical Advances

Open access
Woolf, Steven H., Johnson, Robert E., Phillips, Robert L., Philipsen, Maike·2007·American Journal of Public Health
DOI 10.2105/ajph.2005.084848
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Abstract

Objectives. Social determinants of health, such as inadequate education, contribute greatly to mortality rates. We examined whether correcting the social conditions that account for excess deaths among individuals with inadequate education might save more lives than medical advances (e.g., new drugs and devices). Methods. Using US vital statistics data for 1996 through 2002, we applied indirect standardization techniques to estimate the maximum number of averted deaths attributable to medical advances and the number of deaths that would have been averted if mortality rates among adults with lesser education had been the same as those among college-educated adults. Results. Medical advances averted a maximum of 178193 deaths during the study period. Correcting disparities in education-associated mortality rates would have saved 1369335 lives during the same period, a ratio of 8:1. Conclusions. Higher mortality rates among individuals with inadequate education reflect a complex causal pathway and the influence of confounding variables. Formidable efforts at social change would be necessary to eliminate disparities, but the changes would save more lives than would society’s current heavy investment in medical advances. Spending large sums of money on such advances at the expense of social change may be jeopardizing public health.

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. 10.1016/S0277-9536(99)00084-2 · doi:10.1016/s0277-9536(99)00084-2
  2. 10.2105/AJPH.2004.048439 · doi:10.2105/ajph.2004.048439

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Metadata

Authors
Woolf, S. H., Johnson, R. E., Phillips, R. L., & Philipsen, M.
Venue
American Journal of Public Health
Publisher
American Public Health Association
Published
2007-04
Volume
97
Issue
4
Pages
679-683
ISSN
  • 0090-0036 (ISSN-L)
  • 1541-0048
DOI
10.2105/ajph.2005.084848
OpenAlex
W2051454095
Cited by
277
References
44
FWCI
12.28
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Giving Everyone the Health of the Educated: An Examination of Whether Social Change Would Save More Lives Than Medical Advances. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2105/ajph.2005.084848
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Woolf, S. H., Johnson, R. E., Phillips, R. L., & Philipsen, M. (2007). Giving Everyone the Health of the Educated: An Examination of Whether Social Change Would Save More Lives Than Medical Advances. American Journal of Public Health. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2005.084848

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.