What counts as an explanation?

A much discussed subject in the philosophy of science.  I am curious as to whether medical researchers have a special meaning for it which is quite different from those employed in everyday life or philosophy, as otherwise this headline is highly misleading.  The article mentions (several paragraphs in) that the correlation between IQ and mortality rates may be the result of a common cause of both low IQ and high mortality, and cites the original study as saying this theory has "much to recommend" it (and given my knowledge of the other correlations so far discovered between SES, various health factors, and IQ, it seems obvious that the authors of the study are right to take that possibility very seriously).  But if that's the case, then it would have to be in some very special sense of "explain" that low IQ "explains" high mortality.

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Something about this story smells of the Bell Curve. We know that the concept of IQ is a slippery one at best. Yet there are some who want to use it to 'prove' that certain people (the poor, ethnic minorities, etc) 'deserve' what they get from a politico-economic system which depends upon egregious disparities to function.

But it always makes a good headline to say that this or that thing causes something else. Often the science is more subtle than that. But what seems to be successfully kept out of the papers is the well-supported fact that economic inequality, racism, sexism, etc are better documented causes of much undeserved suffering in this society.