"Upward educational mobility was significantly associated with a slower pace of aging and lower risk of death," the School of Public Health's team said in a press release Friday.
To reach their conclusions, researchers analyzed samples collected during the Framingham Heart Study, which collected data on thousands of participants for three generations, starting in 1948.
During that study, some participants provided blood samples, from which the team analyzed genomic data.
The data was analyzed using the DunedinPACE algorithm tool, which was developed by researchers at Columbia, to measure the speed of aging via chemical tags on DNA in white blood cells.
"We've known for a long time that people who have higher levels of education tend to live longer lives," said Mailman School professor of Epidemiology Daniel Belsky. "But there are a bunch of challenges in figuring out how that happens and, critically, whether interventions to promote educational attainment will contribute to healthy longevity."
Researchers say they considered the potential of social factors affecting their conclusions.
"We focused on educational mobility, how much more (or less) education a person completed relative to their parents," said PhD candidate Gloria Graf.
Researchers said they needed to determine if increased longevity was due to a slower pace of aging, as opposed to a separate environmental factor.
"Our findings support the hypothesis that interventions to promote educational attainment will slow the pace of biological aging," said Graf.
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