According to a new study, a combination of four social factors, gender, marital status, education and race, can impact the risk of early death by up to 18 years. The study analysed US citizens’ data to devise a lifespan scoring system. The study was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Open and conducted by researchers from the University of Southern Denmark. The researchers said that while individual risks and genes partly explain differences in health and death, the evidence points to how social conditions, in which people are born, grow, live and work, shape one’s health.

The researchers found that while no one of the four factors was more influential than any of the others, the more of these factors a person has, the higher their risk of an earlier death. The authors also devised a “simple scoring system” based on the four factors to identify those most at risk. According to the scoring system, one’s lifespan score could range from a lowest of (minus) 10 to a highest of eight.

For the study, the researchers took data on registered deaths and population numbers from national statistics and census for the period 2015-19. Overall, 54 different social groups and 12 specific causes of death, representing 11 leading ones in the US such as lung, breast and other cancers, were included in the analysis.

The researchers compared the partial life expectancies between ages 30 and 90 years of the 54 social groups, which included three types of marital statuses, education and race. The authors said that in this study, partial life expectancy measures the expected years lived between ages 30 and 90, for a maximum of 60 years of life.

Their analysis revealed “very large” differences in the lifespans between the social groups studied.

For example, the authors found that white never-married men with a high school diploma or less had the shortest partial life expectancy of 37 years, while white married women with a university degree had the longest one of 55 years. The authors wrote, “There is an 18-year difference between the minimum and maximum partial life expectancies between age 30 and 90 years across the (social groups).”

The researchers also found that the advantage of the social groups having longer lifespans was not obvious once multiple factors were considered. For example, even though being a woman was related to a higher lifespan than being a man, specific social groups with men were found to have longer lifespans than those involving women.

The authors wrote, “White married men with a university degree have a partial life expectancy of 53.2 years, which is higher than 81 per cent of all the women (social groups).”

Further, the authors found that a social factor curtailing lifespan could be offset by another extending it, and vice versa. For example, having a high school education or lower shortens partial life expectancy by nearly 4 years, but being a married woman raised it by almost 5 years.

According to the authors’ scoring system, being a man was assigned a score of zero, while being a woman was assigned that of four. Being married meant a score of zero, while never married and previously married meant (minus) five and (minus) three. Having a university education was scored two, while a high school diploma or less meant a score of (minus) five.

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