What test can be performed to compare mortality incidence between former smokers who quit <5 years ago vs. current smokers? 

Health Promotion

A recent, article by Kenfield et al. [12] studied the relationship between various aspects of smoking and mortality among 104,519 women in the Nurses€™ Health Study (NHS) from 1980ˆ’2004. One issue is whether there is a mortality benefit from quitting smoking vs. continuing to smoke and, if so, how long it takes for the mortality experience of former smokers to approximate that of never smokers. The data in Table 14.35 were presented comparing former smokers with current smokers.

Table 14.35: Relationship of time since quitting to total mortality

 

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Number of person-years of follow-up Number of deaths 420,761 Current smokers 3,602 Former smokers Quit <5 yrs 889 124,095 Quit 5-9 yrs Quit 10-14 yrs Quit 15-19 yrs Quit 20+ yrs 669 113,056 590 111,701 541 117,914 1,707 336,177