RESEARCH REPORT
The contribution of smoking to socioeconomic differentials in mortality: results from the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study, Australia
1 Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, The Cancer Council Victoria, Carlton, Melbourne, Australia
2 Cancer Epidemiology Centre, The Cancer Council Victoria, Carlton, Melbourne, Australia
3 Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
M Siahpush
Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, The Cancer Council Victoria, 1 Rathdown St, Carlton 3053, Melbourne, Australia; mohammad.siahpush{at}cancervic.org.au
Objective: To assess the contribution of smoking to the inverse association of mortality with years of formal education in men in Australia.
Design: Data were obtained from a prospective cohort study that included 17 049 men in Melbourne recruited from 1990 to 1994, most of whom were aged between 40 and 69 years at baseline. The outcome measured was all-cause mortality. The contribution of smoking to socioeconomic status differentials was estimated by including smoking as a variable in a Cox’s proportional hazards model that also included education and other potential confounding variables.
Results: In men, the association between education and mortality was attenuated after adjustment for smoking, and the aetiological fraction for low levels of education was reduced from 16.5% to 10.6%.
Conclusions: In men, smoking contributes substantially to socioeconomic differentials in mortality. Effective policies and interventions that target smoking among socially disadvantaged groups may substantially reduce socioeconomic differentials in health.
Abbreviations: SES, socioeconomic status
Relevant Article
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
J Epidemiol Community Health 2006 60: 1005.
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Siahpush, M., Spittal, M., Singh, G. K.
(2007). Smoking cessation and financial stress. J Public Health (Oxf)
29: 338-342
[Abstract] [Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
-
Smoking and tobacco
-
Epidemiologic studies
-
Cohort studies
-
Mortality and morbidity
-
Health education
- Relevant Article
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
