tailieunhanh - Health, schooling and lifestyle among young adults in Finland

Last year, applications to nursing degree programs increased by in the United Kingdom (UK), making nursing the top subject area in terms of the highest number of applications received. Despite the strong student interest, the Department of Health in England recently announced the need to cut funding to nursing programs by up to 15% over the next 3 years. Universities in England have confirmed that the number of commissions is likely to decrease by approximately 10-15%, which would curtail future growth in nursing programs. . | HEALTH ECONOMICS Health Econ. 15 1201-1216 2006 Published online 19 June 2006 in Wiley InterScience . DOI Health schooling and lifestyle among young adults in Finland Unto Hakkinena Marjo-Riitta Jarvelinb c Gunnar Rosenqvista d and Jaana Laitinene a Centre for Health Economics at STAKES CHESS Finland b Department of Public Health and General Practice University of Oulu Finland c Department of Epidemiology and Public Health Imperial College London UK d Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration Helsinki Finland e Oulu Regional Institute of Occupational Health Finland Summary This was a longitudinal general population study based on a Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort using a structural equation approach to estimate the health production function and health input functions for four lifestyle variables smoking alcohol consumption exercise and unhealthy diet for males and females. In particular we examined the productive and allocative effects of education on health. We used 15D a generic measure of health-related quality of life as a single index score measure but we also estimated models for some of its dimensions. Among the males the important factors impacting on health were education and all the four lifestyle factors as well as some exogenous variables at 31 years and variables describing parents background and health and behaviour at 14 years. An increase of five years in schooling increased the health score by of which about 50 was due to direct effect and 50 due to indirect effects. Among the females education does not impact on health but health was affected by the use of alcohol exercise and diet but not by smoking. Our results indicate that policy options that increase education among men will increase their health indirectly via healthier lifestyles. However since the total effect was rather modest and the direct effect insignificant an increase of schooling is not a cost-effective way to .