Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27516.
Department of Sociology, Roanoke College, Salem, VA 24153.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jan 2;115(1):109-114. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1714616114. Epub 2017 Dec 18.
Individuals with higher educational attainment live healthier and longer lives. However, not everyone benefits equally from higher education. In particular, the black-white gap in life expectancy is greater at higher levels of educational attainment. Furthermore, recent research suggests that disadvantaged African Americans in the rural Southeast who attend college have worse physical health than their similarly disadvantaged peers who do not attend college. The extent to which this pattern generalizes to a nationally representative, mixed-race sample is unknown. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we test whether the health benefits associated with college completion vary by level of childhood disadvantage for depression and metabolic syndrome in young adulthood, across race/ethnicity. We find uniform lower depression associated with college completion regardless of childhood disadvantage, and across non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic young adults. College completion is associated with lower metabolic syndrome for whites across all levels of childhood disadvantage. In contrast, college completion is associated with higher metabolic syndrome among black and Hispanic young adults from disadvantaged childhood environments. Our findings suggest that, for minorities from disadvantaged backgrounds, finishing college pays substantial dividends for mental health but simultaneously exacts costs with regard to physical health. This pattern contrasts starkly with whites and minorities from more privileged backgrounds, for whom college completion is associated with benefits to both mental and physical health. These results suggest that racial disparities in health may persist in part because the health of upwardly mobile minorities is compromised in young adulthood.
受教育程度较高的人更健康，寿命也更长。然而，并非每个人都能平等地从高等教育中受益。特别是在受教育程度较高的人群中，黑人和白人的预期寿命差距更大。此外，最近的研究表明，在农村东南部处于不利地位的非裔美国大学生的身体健康状况比没有上大学的同龄人更差。这种模式在全国代表性的混合种族样本中普遍存在的程度尚不清楚。本研究使用来自青少年至成年健康纵向研究的数据，检验了在青年时期，无论童年时期的不利程度如何，完成大学学业是否与抑郁和代谢综合征有关，这种健康益处是否因种族/族裔而异。我们发现，无论童年时期是否处于不利地位，无论是否为非裔美国人、非西班牙裔白人还是西班牙裔年轻人，完成大学学业都与抑郁程度的降低有关。对于所有童年时期处于不利地位的白人来说，完成大学学业与代谢综合征的降低有关。相比之下，对于来自不利童年环境的黑人和西班牙裔年轻人来说，完成大学学业与代谢综合征的升高有关。我们的研究结果表明，对于来自不利背景的少数族裔来说，完成大学学业对心理健康有很大的好处，但同时也对身体健康造成了负面影响。这种模式与来自更优越背景的白人及少数族裔形成鲜明对比，对于他们来说，完成大学学业与心理健康和身体健康都有好处。这些结果表明，健康方面的种族差异可能部分是因为向上流动的少数族裔在青年时期的健康受到了损害。
