Understanding these relationships is important, since weak literacy skills may impede good health care practices and healthy lifestyle decisions. The link between population health and the socio-economic environment Traditionally, research on health has concentrated on the importance of a range of obvious health variables such as genetics, biomedical factors, lifestyle patterns, risk behaviours and health care. The importance of this research is undeniable, but it has become increasingly evident that socio-economic status is also one of the strongest predictors of health available. Income, education, occupation and labour force status have now become the measures most frequently used by current researchers. These factors, however, are less useful when applied to studies of older adults.
Occupational status is often problematic, as most seniors have left the labour force.
Similarly, income cannot denote a clear causal path since poorer health can lead to reduced income, which can lead to poorer health, and so on. Income is not a good predictor for seniors. It appears that when seniors are the focus of research, education levels may be the strongest predictor of health. The NPHS shows that those with higher levels of education are much more likely than those with lower levels to be in very good to excellent health. This relationship is fairly constant in all age groups and is true for both women and men.