Is it the main objective of the field of study of differential epidemiology to establish a relationship between intelligence?Or factor, personality traits and subsequent mortality.
A study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh in 2017 found evidence supporting the relationship between the intellectual level of a sample of people in childhood and their subsequent mortality.
- Researchers conclude that the higher the intellectual level observed at age 11.
- The greater the likelihood of crossing the 80-year barrier.
Thus, it seems that the g-factor of intelligence is related to the maintenance of healthy behaviors, good drug use, follow-up treatment, exercise or the development of a balanced diet.
Thus, intelligence, in addition to allowing us to reason, plan, solve problems, think in abstract terms and understand complex ideas, also seems to be a good predictor of a person’s longevity.
The cut-off point has been set at 85 CI points: if the g-factor is smaller, it becomes a risk indicator.
Factor g is related not only to adherence to treatment once the disease is developed, but also to the prevention and anticipation of unforeseen vital events.
Studies show that people with an IQ of less than 85 are three times more likely to suffer or die in a car accident than those with an IQ of 115.
The main problem arises from inequalities in the health system, which at no time includes the g-factor of its users. We could, for example, pay more attention to adherence to the treatment of people in the lower percentiles of the IQ scale.
This would mean inequality in the cognitive accessibility of all health services, so, although it seems unintuitive, for medical and psychological treatments to be more effective it is not necessary to increase the number of services offered, but to adapt these services. to the various personality factors and traits that exist.
The g-factor of intelligence is not the only one that influences a person’s mortality, and his study is not unique to differential epidemiology.
Goldberg’s personality traits such as openness to experience, cordiality, extroversion, neuroticism and responsibility also play an important role in cognitive accessibility to health services and in maintaining healthy lifestyles.
In the case of personality traits, the possibility of general personality factors that cause different disorders has been investigated.
For example, the Responsibility personality trait would be related to the consumption of alcoholic beverages, marijuana and tobacco; Neurosis is related to depression, anxiety and phobias, and cordiality with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCO), mania and schizophrenia.
Similarly, it seems that personality traits and health are also linked in its most practical version. Starting from an integrating personality model, it has been observed that the influence of some factors is more relevant than that of others.
Is this the case of responsibility or self-control, which regulates temperamental systems defined by other traits?For example, cordiality is linked to the use of irrational knowledge, aggression, and impulsivity.
Therefore, it would be necessary to take into account the levels of responsibility in order to define medical or other treatment first, in addition to reviewing the other characteristics and adjusting them accordingly.
The relevance of differential epidemiology lies in the ability to adapt all health resources to the user’s personality and g-factor.
This means that if the lines of study follow this direction, it would be possible to develop profiles based on the expression of a person’s genes and their interaction with the environment.
This would allow us to know how the individual relates to his environment, influenced by his intelligence and personality traits.
This would result in a psychological profile to ideally adapt, for example, medical interventions, the type of prescribed medication, and the days of subsequent consultations.
Although we are far from having individual genetic studies and the use of differential epidemiology on a daily basis, it is possible to implement some changes in primary care to accommodate the cognitive access of people with different IQs.
Some g-factor measures can be easy-to-implement variations, such as not requiring a basic level of reading, communicating what the patient should do (in addition to what they shouldn’t do), adapting prescriptions to understand each individual, using a simple vocabulary and omission of redundant information.
As for personality traits, interventions should be tailored to the levels that exist in each person, for example, by adjusting medications to personality traits and not by giving pills that affect the social life of a person with high levels of extraversion.
All of these measures would not only help users properly use health services, but would turn them into efficient, fast, and high-adherence services to treatment.
In addition, by knowing the personality and intelligence profiles of users of a system, it is possible to develop plans and create campaigns to prevent certain behaviors that are harmful to health.
Thus, knowing how people manage your information, it would be possible to decide which groups and how to provide this information.