The relative importance of education and health behaviour for health and wellbeing

BMC Public Health

Table 1 Sample characteristics

Variables	N	Mean (SD)/%
Education, n (%)
Primary	2313	15.9
Secondary	4182	28.7
Tertiary low	3063	21.0
Tertiary high	5029	34.5
Health behaviour, n (%)
Super-healthy^a	1938	13.5
Semi-healthy^{b & c}	2363	16.5
Semi-unhealthy^d	6667	46.4
Unhealthy^{e & f}	3401	23.7
Childhood financial circumstances (CFC), n (%)
Difficult	3279	22.7
Good	11,183	77.3
Sex, n (%)
Female	7818	53.1
Male	6895	46.9
Age [40–63]^g	14,713	51.2 (6.8)
Health, mean (SD)
EQ-5D-5 L index	14,226	0.89 (0.11)
EQ-VAS score	14,503	0.77 (0.16)
Wellbeing, mean (SD)
SWLS-3 value	14,274	0.70 (0.21)

^a Non-smokers; alcohol ≤ 14 units per week; BMI [18.5–25]; physical activity (PA) ≥ 150 min per week
^b Non-smokers; alcohol ≤ 14 units per week; BMI [18.5–25]; PA [60–149] minutes per week
^c Non-smokers; alcohol ≤ 14 units per week; BMI [25–27.49]; PA ≥ 150 min per week
^d All residual combinations other than defined by sub-groups a, b, c, e, f
^e BMI > 30 & PA < 60 min per week & non-smokers
^f All smokers, no matter their BMI, PA or alcohol intake
EQ-5D-5 L: EuroQol descriptive system, using the WePP value set (Western Preference Pattern, hybrid based on four Western countries: Canada, England, the Netherlands, Spain);
EQ- VAS: EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale, converted to [0–1] scale;
SWLS-3: the first three items of the satisfaction with life scale, converted to [0–1] scale
^g The 63-year-old cohort was the first in this municipality to be exposed to an educational reform that extended primary school from 7 to 9 years of compulsory education, something which appears to have contributed to a generally higher education level, in that the proportion of tertiary educated increased from 42.0% among the 64 year old subjects to 45.8% among the 63-year-olds. A further reform that affected higher uptake of tertiary education was the expanded financial support for education around the time when the 63-year-olds finished secondary school

ISSN: 1471-2458