Age and Cumulative Advantage

This chapter describes the two forces behind education&s;s cumulative advantages: accumulation and amplification. Education&s;s effects work the opposite way, growing with time. Accumulation refers to gathering many smaller effects into a larger one. The health-related consequences of education accumulate on many levels, from the socioeconomic down to the cellular. The socioeconomic and behavioral accumulations necessarily influence health through biological mechanisms, many of which accumulate too. Some undesirable biological accumulations get defined as diseases or medical conditions when they progress beyond a clearly dangerous point. The stress response is a two-phase activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal glands. Education makes individuals more adept at resource substitution, which means using one thing in place of another, and finding ways to achieve ends with whatever materials, relationships, and circumstances present themselves. The differences in health and healthy life expectancy among persons of the same age but different levels of education continue to expand.

Biology · Cumulative effects · Global Health Care Issues