One of the best things Black women can do for their health may be to get a college education, according to results of a national analysis.
“Essentially what this study observed was that for Black women, the higher your education level, the lower your allostatic load,” says Dr. Justin Xavier Moore, epidemiologist at the Medical College of Georgia and Georgia Cancer Center, referencing the impact the wear and tear of chronic stress and life have on the body and health.
Investigators led by Moore looked at data on 4,177 Black women ages 18 and older from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, or NHANES, collected between 1999-2018.
While Black women have generally been shown to have higher allostatic loads than other race-gender groups, including Black men, higher education appears to help reduce their load, Moore and his colleagues report in the journal BMC Women’s Health.
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