Children Whose Mothers Can Read and Write Live Longer

Emmanuela Gakidou's 2010 study across 175 countries revealed that 51 percent of the 8.2-million drop in child deaths between 1970 and 2009 tracked with one variable: maternal education. The mechanism isn't health class content. Paul Glewwe's Moroccan research found literacy functions as a gateway to knowledge acquired outside school. In Nigeria, controlling for maternal literacy shrinks the education-immunization link by 90 percent; controlling for income shrinks it only 27 percent. The door that matters most isn't wealth.

You'll learn:

- Why maternal education's effect peaks between ages one and four

- How sequential illness descriptions speed clinical diagnosis

- The three-book threshold that doubles early literacy odds