Education and mortality in Washington County, Maryland

In 1963 a private census of Washington County, Maryland, obtained information on race, sex, age, marital status, education, housing facilities, smoking, and church attendance. For the next eight years, death certificates were matched to the census records, thus permitting analysis of death rates according to educational status after removing the effects of several other important variables. There was a significant inverse association of education with total mortality. Much of this effect was accounted for by arteriosclerotic heart disease. The failure of the age-standardized death rate to continue its former decline in the United States in the face of increasing levels of education suggests that there may be some countervailing influence on mortality.