Does building more primary schools lead to better long-term health?
CHE RESEARCH BITES
By Fikru Rizal and Rohan Sweeney
Published: 10 July, 2023
In the 1970s, the Indonesian Government constructed about 60,000 new primary schools to address low rates of schooling and education. Fifty years on, are those who benefitted from the program better off health-wise?
Previous studies conducted in high-income countries generally find that an increase in the number of years of high school education has either no or a small impact on health.
CHE researchers Fikru Rizal, Nicole Black, Davis Johnston, and Rohan Sweeney wanted to know whether the large primary school construction program - Sekolah Dasar (SD) INPRES - changed the risk of developing non-communicable diseases later in life.
Non-communicable diseases account for 85% of all premature deaths in low-and middle-income countries. In recent decades, they have become the leading cause of mortality in Indonesia.
The researchers investigated whether exposure to this program has impacted body weight, blood pressure and smoking as people reach their 40s and 50s.
Neither women nor men exposed to the school expansion program were more likely to be obese, have high blood pressure, diabetes, or cardiovascular diseases, and women were less likely to smoke.
Perhaps surprisingly, they found that women exposed to the primary school building program were more likely to be overweight, at least partially due to increased consumption of high-calorie take-away meals.
Also, those who participated in the program generally reported fewer health problems as they reached middle ages, but this was no longer true as women aged from early to mid-forties.
As this large cohort of Indonesians move from middle to older age, monitoring whether these unintended health consequences of the primary school building program lead to a higher risk and prevalence of non-communicable diseases is vital. We also need to explore alternative policies to tackle the surge of non-communicable diseases in Indonesia.
Find the original academic paper here: Rizal, M. F., Black, N., Johnston, D. W., & Sweeney, R. (Accepted/In press). Long-term health effects of a school construction program. Health Economics. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4683
CHE Research Bites are short, easy-to-understand summaries of our recent academic papers highlighting new evidence and insights on topical issues in the health and healthcare sectors.
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