intelligence and physical health

Question 1

Intellignce and physical health

Answer 1

• Higher intelligence is associated with living longer
• Lower intelligence in youth is also associated with various diseases/ all-cause mortality/ health care use, treatment compliance
• Whalley and Deary 2001- provide 4 non exclusive possible explanations (4 links)

Question 2

LINK 1

Answer 2

PRIOR HEALTH/DPRIVATION- INTELLIGENCE - ILLNESS

• Health and deprivation links
• Health and deprivation affects intelligence scores in childhood and youth; it is the former that predicts future health and mortality

Question 3

LINK 2

Answer 3

GENETIC/BIOLOGICAL PREDISPOSITION - INTELLIGENCE/ILLNSS

• Physical health; mental health, health behaviours and mortality are all partly heritable; may be partly associated with the same genetic variants
• Genetic variants associated with intelligence are associated with physical health and health related behaviours(Deary et al., 2021)
• The common genetic basis of these constructs supports the notion of system integrity
• Intelligence is indicative of an efficient brain/general physiological makeup which is correlated with the health of the body more generally

Question 4

LINK 3

Answer 4

INTELLIGENCE- HEALTH LITERACY- HEALTH BEHAVIOUR- ILNESS

• Intelligence in childhood and youth might be associated with health literacy (knowing what is healthy and not healthy) and subsequent uptake of health related behaviours

Question 5

LINK 4

Answer 5

INTELLIGENCE- EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT- SOCIO ECONOMIC STATUS- HEALTH BEHAVIOUR- ILLNESS

• Intelligence is associated with higher educational attainments and thereby entry to safer and healthier environment

Question 6

INTELLIGENC AND VACCINATION INTENTION

Answer 6

 Vaccination intention (24 November 2020, efficacy of AstraZeneca vaccine was announced)
 They asked ‘’imagine that a vaccine against covid-19 was available for anyone who wanted it. How likely or unlikely would you to take the vaccine?’’
 They measured intelligence back in 2012
 Control variables- age, sex, ethnicity, highest education level, physical health status, shielding status of any household member, current psychological distress
 FINDINGS- After controllingfor age, sex, and ethnicity, ppts with a lower intelligence were markedly more likely to be vaccine hesitant