DATA INSIGHTS - Selective schools: do they improve health?

This week, Research Fellow Frank Popham outlines his research findings on selective schools and their impact on health.

It is often assumed that children who attend a better-resourced school, are educated for longer and gain more qualifications are associated with better physical health, mental health and a longer life expectancy in countries around the world.

Using data from The Aberdeen Children of the 1950s (ACONF), Frank and his fellow researchers investigated whether those children who scored higher test scores at age 11 (known as the 11+) and were therefore selected to attend academic focussed schools, recorded better health in later life in their 50s and 60s.

This Data Insights explores the long term effects of education and whether it is the type of school that a child attends that causes better life health, or if it is simply that those attending academic focussed schools tend to come from socio-economically advantaged families.

Further Information

Read the full Data Insights to find out more about this research project.

Read the full journal article - Butler and Popham et al, The long-term health effects of attending a selective school: a natural experiment, BMC Medicine, Volume 18, Article 77 (2020).

For more details on The Aberdeen Children of the 1950s study, please visit their website.