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What you said about cognitive ability as indicator of health over time reminds me of this paper by Reeve & Basalik, "Is health literacy an example of construct proliferation? A conceptual and empirical evaluation of its redundancy with general cognitive ability". What they showed is that the tests typically used to measure health literacy is a good proxy for intelligence, despite not being intended to be so. The fact that health literacy is such a strong predictor at maintaining health over time, and even seen as a tool for reducing health inequalities. If literacy is best conceptualized as intelligence rather than knowledge, the interpretation is now very different.

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I'll take a look at the paper thanks!

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