Does education level affect the health status of the elderly? The chain mediating effect of internet use, health behavior and social class identity.

Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science

Health Status* ; Social Class* ; Educational Status* ; Health Behavior* ; Internet Use*/statistics & numerical data; Humans ; Aged ; Male ; Female ; China ; Middle Aged ; Aged, 80 and over

Background: China's aging population is gradually increasing, and the health status of the elderly has become the focus of social attention. Education level is one of the important factors affecting the health status of the elderly. However, there are few studies on how education level specifically affects the health status of the elderly in China. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the influence path of education level on the health status of the elderly in China, and to further study the mediating effect of Internet use, health behavior and social class identity in this process.
Methods: This study is based on the latest version of the Chinese General Social Survey data as the basis of empirical analysis. Through multiple linear regression analysis, structural equation model analysis, Bootstrap method and robustness test, the relationship between education level, Internet use, health behavior, social class identity and the health status of the elderly is verified.
Results: (1) Education level has a significant positive impact on the health status of the elderly in China (p < 0.05), which is, education level has a positive effect on the health status of the elderly in China. (2) Internet use, health behavior and social class identity have a significant mediating effect between education level and health status of Chinese elderly, and the mediating effect values are 0.024, 0.002 and 0.011, respectively. (3) Internet use, health behavior and social class identity play a chain mediating role in the impact of education level on the health status of the elderly, and the chain mediating effect value is 0.004.
Conclusions: This study not only confirms the direct impact of education level on the health status of the elderly in China, but also reveals the indirect role of Internet use, healthy behavior and social class identity in this impact mechanism. These findings provide new perspectives and strategies for further improving the health status of the elderly in China.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2025 Qin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

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Date Created: 20250228 Date Completed: 20250228 Latest Revision: 20250302

20250302

PMC11870362

10.1371/journal.pone.0319389

40019900