Education, and mortality. The significance of aspects of health-related life styles

Numerous studies. have shown that there are class differences in mortality; however, the underlying, causes of these differences have remained unclean The present study examines whether and to what extent it is aspects of a h ealthy life style that produce class differences, in mortality. Furthermore , this paper poses the question, seldom examined to date, as to the degree to, which there are interaction effects between class and life style. The a nalysis uses an epidemiological data base little known in the social scienc es, the follow-up study of the WHO-MONICA project, which also includes vari ables describing preventive behavior as well as bio-medical information. In addition, differentiation with respect to the causes of death facilitates a more refined analysis of the impact of levels of education. The results s how that a health-related life style in regard to the consumption of tobacc o and alcohol, exercise, nutrition, and amount of sleep has a sustained eff ect on death rates in men. In the case of cancer, the effect of education i s stronger than for overall mortality. It appears that the interaction effe ct between life style and educational level operates in such a way that beh avior which poses a threat to good health actually has less of an impact if the individual has reached a higher level of education.