Education saves lives.

issue of WMJ describe a community-based social marketing and education campaign created in an attempt to increase immunization rates in vulnerable populations. the authors used interviews to assess how and what neighbors need to know about immunization practices and then developed a series of posters on basic themes directed toward a number of health habits. Some of these messages appeared on billboards, flyers, and other mediums, and the results are encouraging. People remembered the ads and signs, they understood their value, and they intended to act on the messages they contain. a strategy that engages citizens in their community’s own health issues works. neighbors’ voices are essential to be effective. While not comparing public marketing An article from the november 28 issue of Science may be one of the most important articles about health and society in decades, linking education worldwide to survival rates from natural disasters.1 the authors make the case that more lives are saved by expanding education—particularly for young women and girls who are often family decision makers—than by large engineering projects seeking to mitigate the effects of rising seas and increased severity of storms. the more literate and educated the population, the fewer people die in hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, floods, and natural disasters of all sorts. While the linkages are not apparent at first, the article discusses research that shows that education increases adaptive choices and decreases vulnerability. Education increases income and enables families to live in less high-risk locations. lutz and colleagues use 30 years of data from around the world to show that increasing education would dramatically shift the population curve, not merely through the inverse relationship between education and birth rate, but by helping people make better personal choices of all kinds, including their geographic and built environments, which will save lives. on a local rather than global level, we know that our patients who have less education and therefore lower incomes often engage in a disproportionate number of poor choices (eg, smoking and/or drug use) that lead to worse health outcomes such as mental health issues and obesity. they also sufin tHiS iSSUE