The causal links in this analysis are very heterogeneous.

Some causes for accelerated aging seem relatively direct and plausible with causal models that have supporting literature, i.e. air quality.

On the societal level, it's much more complicated. For example, there will be an immense number of paths how education affect aging, some positive and some negative.

I wonder how much of those effects boil down to a few highly influential (unobserved?) covariates, such as physical activity, drug consumption and crime rate.

[edit] by the way, look at the replication materials - I've rarely seen such clean code. Kudos!

https://github.com/euroladbrainlat/Biobehavioral-age-gaps/bl...