I was heartened to see that the Mackenbach article concluded by positing that policies that promote socioeconomic equity may reduce disparities in preventable death (though they noted the difficulties implementing this). I found myself wondering how the results might change if the authors had used a different or more complex measure of education (e.g. a measure that incorporates the "big three": income, education, and occupation).
On a related note, I wondering whether the authors considered controlling for differences in policies for public funding for higher education across the included countries.