Minorities' Diminished Returns of Educational Attainment on Hospitalization Risk: National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).

Shervin Assari,Mohsen Bazargan

doi:10.15171/hpr.2019.17

Abstract

As suggested by the Minorities' Diminished Returns (MDRs) theory, educational attainment shows a weaker protective effect for racial and ethnic minority groups compared to non-Hispanic Whites. This pattern, however, is never shown for hospitalization risk. This cross-sectional explored racial and ethnic variation in the association between educational attainment and hospitalization in the US. Data came from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS 2015). The total sample was 28,959 American adults. Independent variables were educational attainment and hospitalization. The main outcome was hospitalization during the last 12 months. Age, gender, employment, marital status, region, obesity, and the number of cardiovascular conditions were covariates. Race and ethnicity were the effect modifiers. Logistic regression models were utilized to analyze the data. From all participants, 16.2% were Black and 11.6 were Hispanic, with a mean age of 51 years old. Overall, higher education levels were associated with lower odds of hospitalization, independent of all confounders. Educational attainment showed significant interactions with race (OR =1.04, 95% CI = 1.01 - 1.08) and ethnicity (OR = 1.04, 95% CI =1.01 -1.07) on hospitalization, indicating smaller protective effects of educational attainment on hospitalization of Hispanics and Blacks than non-Hispanic Whites. The protective effect of educational attainment on population health is smaller for Blacks and Hispanics compared to non-Hispanic Whites. To prevent health disparities, there is a need to minimize diminished returns of educational attainment for racial and ethnic minorities. To do so, there is a need for innovative and bold economic, public, and social policies that do not limit themselves to equalizing socioeconomic status but also help minorities leverage their available resources and gain tangible outcomes.

Highlights

As suggested by the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDRs) theory, educational attainment shows a weaker protective effect for racial and ethnic minority groups compared to non-Hispanic Whites
54.2% were employed, 43.4% were married, 34.1% were obese, and 10.1% had been hospitalized during the 12 months prior to the study (Table 1)
Higher educational attainment was inversely associated with hospitalization in the pooled sample; this effect was smaller for Blacks and Hispanics than for nonHispanic Whites

Summary

Introduction

As suggested by the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDRs) theory, educational attainment shows a weaker protective effect for racial and ethnic minority groups compared to non-Hispanic Whites. This pattern, is never shown for hospitalization risk. The protective effects of SES indicators on health outcomes differ among populations.[12,13,14,15] The effects of SES indicators, educational attainment, on CVDs risk are shown to vary across populations.[13,14] According to the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDRs) theory,[16,17] SES indicators, educational attainment, are less protective for racial and ethnic minority groups than for majority groups.[18] Most of the literature on this issue, has focused on the effects of SES on health outcomes for Blacks[18,19,20] and Hispanics[21,22] compared to Whites. Various studies have shown that SES indicators show larger effects on smoking[23] and drinking[21] for non-Hispanic Whites than for Hispanics or Blacks

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion