@article{THESIS,
      recid = {3498},
      author = {Shi, Haoyu},
      title = {The Effect of Educational Attainment on COVID-19 Morbidity  in the City of Chicago},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {M.A.},
      address = {2021-12},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected everyone  but not equally. While many researchers examine the social  inequalities of COVID-19 through income, housing,  occupation, and health care accessibility, less attention  has been paid to education due to lack of information for  education associated with test reports. Based on the  education-health gradient (Cutler & Lleras-Muney, 2006),  education has causal effects on various health outcomes;  even with similar income and occupation, people with higher  educational attainment generally have better health  outcomes. This theory has been widely adopted to research  chronic and degenerative diseases, such as cardiovascular  disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. However, there  is limited research on the effect of education on  communicable diseases. To analyze the potential impacts of  education on communicable diseases, this research examines  the relationship between educational attainment and  COVID-19 morbidity in 56 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs)  of Chicago. COVID-19 statistics were retrieved from the  Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) and  socioeconomic status (SES) statistics were retrieved from  the American Community Survey 2019 (ACS-2019). Due to the  variation in the test rates across Chicago, the estimates  of morbidity based on infection rate tend to underestimate  the true morbidity of communities with lower test rates.  Therefore, this research measures COVID-19 morbidity by  both test positivity rate and infection rate. Educational  attainment is measured by the proportion of adults with at  least a bachelor’s degree. Median income and average  household size are used to control accessibility to  resources and living conditions. The proportion of workers  in service occupations are used to control occupational  risk. Several linear regression models were conducted.  Because the SES variables are highly correlated,  regularization was used to combat multicollinearity.  Because infectious diseases spread from one community to  the neighboring communities, spatial regression was used to  combat the spatial diffusion effect of COVID-19. The  results show consistent negative and significant  associations between educational attainment and both  COVID-19 test positivity rate and infection rate. This  indicates that high educational attainment lowers COVID-19  morbidity at community level. Public health experts and  policymakers should make education more accessible to  mitigate the social inequality in health and achieve better  population health. Since this research analyzes  cross-sectional data at aggregate level, the relationship  between educational attainment and COVID-19 morbidity in  this research might not be causal and may not be  generalized to individuals. Further research utilizing  individual-level and longitudinal data is required to study  the causal pathways of education on infectious disease  outcomes.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/3498},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.3498},
}