The Journal of Public Health published data on the relationship between smoking and health (see Landwehr and Watkins [1987]). They reported the cigarette consumption per adult for 21 mostly western and developed countries, along with the coronary heart disease rate for each country. The data clearly show that coronary heart disease is highest in those countries with the highest cigarette consumption.
(a) Why might the sampling in this study have been limited to developed countries?
(b) How would you characterize the two variables in terms of what we have labeled “scales of measurement”?
(c) If our goal is to study the health effects of smoking, how do these data relate to that overall question?
(d) What other variables might need to be taken into consideration in such a study?
(e) It has been reported that tobacco companies are making a massive advertising effort in
Asia. A few years ago only 7% of Chinese women smoked (compared to 61% of Chinese men). How would a health psychologist go about studying the health effects of likely changes in the incidence of smoking among Chinese women?
(f) Do a search of the Internet using Google to find articles relating secondhand smoke to coronary heart disease. What do these articles suggest?