Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, University of Texas at Austin, 2109 San Jacinto D3700, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
Department of Population Health, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
BMC Womens Health. 2021 Jan 6;21(1):15. doi: 10.1186/s12905-020-01150-y.
Early childbearing is associated with adverse health and well-being throughout the life course for women in the United States. As education continues to be a modifiable social determinant of health after a young woman gives birth, the association of increased educational attainment with long-term health for women who begin childbearing as teenagers is worthy of investigation.
Data are from 301 mothers in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 who gave birth prior to age 19. We estimated path models to assess women's incomes, partner characteristics, and health behaviors at age 40 as mediators of the relationship between their educational attainment and self-rated general health at age 50.
After accounting for observed background factors that select women into early childbearing and lower educational attainment, higher levels of education (high school diploma and GED attainment vs. no degree) were indirectly associated with higher self-rated health at age 50 via higher participant income at age 40.
As education is a social determinant of health that is amenable to intervention after a teen gives birth, our results are supportive of higher educational attainment as a potential pathway to improving long-term health outcomes of women who begin childbearing early.
在美国，女性早育与整个生命过程中的健康和福祉不佳有关。由于在年轻女性生育后，教育仍然是健康的一个可改变的社会决定因素，因此，对于那些在青少年时期开始生育的女性来说，增加教育程度与长期健康之间的关联值得研究。
数据来自于全国青年纵向调查 1979 年的 301 名在 19 岁之前生育的母亲。我们估计了路径模型，以评估女性在 40 岁时的收入、伴侣特征和健康行为，作为其教育程度与 50 岁时自我报告的一般健康之间关系的中介因素。
在考虑到将女性选择为早育和低教育程度的观察到的背景因素后，更高水平的教育（高中文凭和普通教育发展证书的获得与没有学位）通过女性在 40 岁时更高的收入，与 50 岁时更高的自我报告健康状况间接相关。
由于教育是健康的一个社会决定因素，并且在青少年生育后可以通过干预来改变，因此，我们的结果支持更高的教育程度是改善那些早育的女性长期健康结果的一个潜在途径。
