Educational gradient of health in rural China.

Highlights • The educational gradient of health is examined for the rural residents in China. • Educational attainment had a significant and positive correlation with self-rated health. • The education-health correlation was mediated by the effectiveness factors. • People's cognitive skills and material resources fail to play a mediator role. Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine whether and how rural residents' educational attainment is associated with their self-rated health in China. Taking advantage of the National Exercise Facility Survey that was collected between December 2015 and March 2016, we find that educational attainment has a significant and positive correlation with self-rated health, net of the effects of age, gender, and geographical region. This correlation is mediated by factors such as perceived importance of exercise and healthy lifestyle. Relatively, people's cognitive knowledge about health-related information and material resource access fail to play a significant mediating role. The findings highlight the non-material and non-cognitive attributes of educational attainment in shaping the gradient of health in the rural setting of China. Interventions that expand formal education to the mass and optimize teaching contents may offer an effective means to balance the health gradient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]