Search Results
Author: von Hippel, Paul
Resulting in 6 citations.
| 1. |
Benson, Rebecca Irene von Hippel, Paul Lynch, Jamie L. |
|
Does More Education Cause Lower BMI, or Do Lower-BMI Individuals Become More Educated? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Social Science and Medicine 211 (August 2018): 370-377. Also: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617301971 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Elsevier Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Educational Attainment; Gender Differences; Obesity More educated adults have lower average body mass index (BMI). This may be due to selection, if adolescents with lower BMI attain higher levels of education, or it may be due to causation, if higher educational attainment reduces BMI gain in adulthood. We test for selection and causation in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, which has followed a representative US cohort from age 14-22 in 1979 through age 47-55 in 2012. Using ordinal logistic regression, we test the selection hypothesis that high-overweight and obese adolescents were less likely to earn high school diplomas and bachelor's degrees. Then, controlling for selection with individual fixed effects, we estimate the causal effect of degree completion on BMI and obesity status. Among 18-year-old women, but not among men, being overweight or obese predicts lower odds of attaining higher levels of education. Higher education at age 47-48 is associated with lower BMI, but 70-90% of the association is due to selection. Net of selection, a bachelor's degree predicts less than a 1 kg reduction in body weight, and a high school credential does not reduce BMI. At midlife, selection accounts for almost all of the education gradient in women's BMI. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Benson, Rebecca Irene, Paul von Hippel and Jamie L. Lynch. "Does More Education Cause Lower BMI, or Do Lower-BMI Individuals Become More Educated? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979." Social Science and Medicine 211 (August 2018): 370-377.
|
| 2. |
Lynch, Jamie L. von Hippel, Paul |
|
An Education Gradient in Health or a Health Gradient in Education? Education and Self-Rated Health from Age 15 to Age 31 Presented: San Diego CA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April-May 2015 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Population Association of America Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Modeling, Fixed Effects Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. There is a positive gradient relating educational attainment and health, yet the causal direction of the gradient is not clear. Does higher education improve health--an education gradient in health. Or do the healthy become highly educated--a health gradient in education? This study addresses the direction of the gradient by tracking changes in educational attainment and self-rated health (SRH) from age 15 to age 31 in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 cohort (NLSY97). Ordinal logistic regression shows that high-SRH adolescents are more likely to become highly educated. Fixed-effects longitudinal regression shows that changes in educational attainment have little effect on SRH at age 31. While it is possible that educational attainment would have greater effect on health at older ages, at age 31 what we see is primarily a health gradient in education, not an education gradient in health. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Lynch, Jamie L. and Paul von Hippel. "An Education Gradient in Health or a Health Gradient in Education? Education and Self-Rated Health from Age 15 to Age 31." Presented: San Diego CA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April-May 2015. |
| 3. |
Lynch, Jamie L. von Hippel, Paul |
|
An Education Gradient in Health, a Health Gradient in Education, or a Confounded Gradient in Both? Social Science and Medicine 154 (April 2016): 18-27. Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616300843 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Elsevier Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Modeling, Fixed Effects There is a positive gradient associating educational attainment with health, yet the explanation for this gradient is not clear. Does higher education improve health (causation)? Do the healthy become highly educated (selection)? Or do good health and high educational attainment both result from advantages established early in the life course (confounding)? This study evaluates these competing explanations by tracking changes in educational attainment and Self-rated Health (SRH) from age 15 to age 31 in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 cohort. Ordinal logistic regression confirms that high-SRH adolescents are more likely to become highly educated. This is partly because adolescent SRH is associated with early advantages including adolescents' academic performance, college plans, and family background (confounding); however, net of these confounders adolescent SRH still predicts adult educational attainment (selection). Fixed-effects longitudinal regression shows that educational attainment has little causal effect on SRH at age 31. Completion of a high school diploma or associate's degree has no effect on SRH, while completion of a bachelor's or graduate degree have effects that, though significant, are quite small (less than 0.1 points on a 5-point scale). While it is possible that educational attainment would have greater effect on health at older ages, at age 31 what we see is a health gradient in education, shaped primarily by selection and confounding rather than by a causal effect of education on health. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
Lynch, Jamie L. and Paul von Hippel. "An Education Gradient in Health, a Health Gradient in Education, or a Confounded Gradient in Both?" Social Science and Medicine 154 (April 2016): 18-27.
|
| 4. |
von Hippel, Paul Lynch, Jamie L. |
|
A Simplified Equation for Adult BMI Growth, and Its Use to Adjust BMI for Age International Journal of Epidemiology 41,3 (June 2012): 888-890. Also: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/41/3/888 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Oxford University Press Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Epidemiology; Growth Curves Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Although standards for children’s growth in body mass index (BMI) are widely used,standards for BMI growth in adulthood are less developed. A year ago in this journal, Østbye et al. made an important contribution to the study of adult BMI growth by describing the average BMI growth curves for four latent groups of US adults followed from the age of 18 to 49 years in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort (NLSY79). Participants in the NLSY79 were born between 1957 and 1965. In this letter, we show that the average growth curves of all four groups can be summarized using one equation with a single parameter. We then use that equation to put the BMIs of adults measured at different ages on a common, age-adjusted scale. Finally, we illustrate how age-adjusted BMIs can be used in epidemiology. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
von Hippel, Paul and Jamie L. Lynch. "A Simplified Equation for Adult BMI Growth, and Its Use to Adjust BMI for Age." International Journal of Epidemiology 41,3 (June 2012): 888-890.
|
| 5. |
von Hippel, Paul Lynch, Jamie L. |
|
College and Weight Gain: Is There a Freshman Five? Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Population Association of America Keyword(s): College Education; Obesity; Weight Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Education is generally associated with superior health, yet it is widely believed that attending college causes excessive weight gain (the “freshman five”). This study tries to ascertain whether college attendance increases or decreases obesity risk. Using data came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort (NLSY97), we compared the weight and weight gain of 16-to-23-year-olds who did and did not attend college. We conducted separate analyses for black, white, and Hispanic males and females. Each analysis controlled for confounders including prior weight and measures of family background. We find that college attenders do gain weight during their college years, but college-age non-attenders gain about the same amount. There are some weight differences between college attenders and non-attenders, but these differences are established well before college begins. College attendance appears to have little effect on body weight, at least in the short run. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
von Hippel, Paul and Jamie L. Lynch. "College and Weight Gain: Is There a Freshman Five?" Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012. |
| 6. |
von Hippel, Paul Lynch, Jamie L. |
|
Why are Educated Adults Slim—Causation or Selection? Social Science and Medicine 105 (March 2014): 131-139. Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614000264 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Elsevier Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Educational Attainment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Obesity; Socioeconomic Background; Weight More educated adults tend to have lower body mass index (BMI) and a lower risk of overweight and obesity. We contrast two explanations for this education gradient in BMI. One explanation is selection: adolescents with high BMI are less likely to plan for, attend, and complete higher levels of education. An alternative explanation is causation: higher education confers lifelong social, economic, and psychological benefits that help adults to restrain BMI growth. We test the relative importance of selection and causation using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort (NLSY97), which tracks BMI from adolescence (age 15) through young adulthood (age 29). Ordinal regression models confirm the selection hypothesis that high-BMI adolescents are less likely to complete higher levels of education. Selection has primarily to do with the fact that high-BMI adolescents tend to come from socioeconomically disadvantaged families and tend to have low grades and test scores. Among high-BMI girls there is also some evidence that educational attainment is limited by bullying, pessimism, poor health, and early pregnancy. About half the selection of high-BMI girls out of higher education remains unexplained. Fixed-effects models control for selection and suggest that the causal effect of education on BMI, though significant, accounts for only one-quarter of the mean BMI differences between more and less educated adults at age 29. Among young adults, it appears that most of the education gradient in BMI is due to selection. |
|
|
Bibliography Citation
von Hippel, Paul and Jamie L. Lynch. "Why are Educated Adults Slim—Causation or Selection?" Social Science and Medicine 105 (March 2014): 131-139.
|