Educational attainment and cigarette smoking: a causal association?y (original) (raw)
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Understanding the associations among education, employment characteristics, and smoking
Addictive Behaviors, 2005
The current study examined the association between education level and smoking status in a community-based sample of working adults. Participants were enrolled at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center site of a cancer risk behavior reduction intervention delivered at the worksite. There was a strong educational gradient in smoking status. The prevalence of current smoking was almost threefold higher among individuals with bHS degree than among individuals with at least a college degree (37% versus 14%), while the percentage of never smokers among individuals with bHS degree was less than half that of individuals with at least a college degree (29% versus 60%). The educational gradient in smoking status was extremely robust and education uniquely contributed to the prediction of smoking status over and above the effects of demographics, job status, and job related characteristics. Identifying the mechanisms underlying this association as well as high risk subgroups of individuals with low education could contribute to reducing the educational gradient in smoking status and warrants further research attention.
Does the association between smoking and mortality differ by educational level?
Social Science & Medicine, 2012
Some researchers suggest that the effect of smoking on health depends on socioeconomic status; while others purport that the effect of smoking on health is similar across all social groups. This question of the interaction between smoking and socioeconomic status is important to an improved understanding of the role of smoking in the social gradient in mortality and morbidity. For this purpose, we examined whether educational level modifies the association between smoking and mortality. Information on smoking by age, gender and educational level was extracted from the Belgian Health Interview Surveys of 1997 and 2001. The mortality follow up of the survey respondents was reported until December 2010. A Poisson regression was used to estimate the hazard ratio of mortality for heavy smokers, light smokers, and former smokers compared with never smokers by educational level controlling for age and other confounders. Among men, we found lower hazard ratios in the lowest educational category compared with the intermediate and high-educated categories. For instance, for heavy smokers, the hazard ratios were 2.59 (1.18e5.70) for those with low levels of education, 4.03 (2.59e6.26) for those with intermediate levels of education and 3.78 (1.52e9.43) for the highly educated. However, the interaction between smoking and education was not statistically significant. For women, the hazard ratios were not significant for any educational category except for heavy smokers with intermediate levels of education. Also here the interaction was not statistically significant. Our results support the hypothesis that educational attainment does not substantially influence the association between smoking and mortality.
The Contribution of Smoking to Educational Gradients in U.S. Life Expectancy
Journal of health and social behavior, 2015
Researchers have documented widening educational gradients in mortality in the United States since the 1970s. While smoking has been proposed as a key explanation for this trend, no prior study has quantified the contribution of smoking to increasing education gaps in longevity. We estimate the contribution of smoking to educational gradients in life expectancy using data on white men and women ages 50 and older from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study (N = 283,430; 68,644 deaths) and the National Health Interview Survey (N = 584,811; 127,226 deaths) in five periods covering the 1980s to 2006. In each period, smoking makes an important contribution to education gaps in longevity for white men and women. Smoking accounts for half the increase in the gap for white women but does not explain the widening gap for white men in the most recent period. Addressing greater initiation and continued smoking among the less educated may reduce mortality inequalities.
Does education affect smoking behaviors
Journal of Health Economics, 2007
This paper tests the hypothesis that education improves health and increases people's life expectancy. It does so by analyzing the effect of education on smoking behaviors. To account for the endogeneity of smoking, the analysis develops an instrumental variable approach which relies on the fact that during the Vietnam War college attendance provided a strategy to avoid the draft. The results indicate that education does affect smoking decisions: educated individuals are less likely to smoke, and among those who initiated smoking, they are more likely to have stopped.
Scientific Reports
We tested the causality between education and smoking using the natural experiment of discordant twin pairs allowing to optimally control for background genetic and childhood social factors. Data from 18 cohorts including 10,527 monozygotic (MZ) and same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs discordant for education and smoking were analyzed by linear fixed effects regression models. Within twin pairs, education levels were lower among the currently smoking than among the never smoking co-twins and this education difference was larger within DZ than MZ pairs. Similarly, education levels were higher among former smoking than among currently smoking co-twins, and this difference was larger within DZ pairs. Our results support the hypothesis of a causal effect of education on both current smoking status and smoking cessation. However, the even greater intra-pair differences within DZ pairs, who share only 50% of their segregating genes, provide evidence that shared genetic factors also contrib...
Educational attainment and smoking among women: Risk factors and consequences for offspring
Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2009
We examine the association between education and smoking by women in the population, including smoking during pregnancy, and identify risk factors for smoking and the consequences of smoking in pregnancy for children's smoking and behavioral problems. Secondary analyses of four national data sets were implemented: ). The lower the level of education, the greater the risk of being a current smoker, smoking daily, smoking heavily, being nicotine dependent, starting to smoke at an early age, having higher levels of circulating cotinine per cigarettes smoked, and continuing to smoke in pregnancy. The educational gradient is especially strong in pregnancy. Educational level and smoking in pregnancy independently increase the risk of offspring smoking and antisocial and anxious/depressed behavior problems. These effects persist with control for other covariates, except maternal age at child's birth, which accounts for the impact of education on offspring smoking and anxious/depressed behavior problems. Women with low education should be the target of public health efforts toward reducing tobacco use. These efforts need to focus as much on social conditions that affect women's lives as on individual level interventions. These interventions would have beneficial effects not only for the women themselves but also for their offspring.
Economics of Education Review, 1995
The effect of schooling on the odds that men and women smoke is estimated for five age cohorts. Particular attention is givcn to the issue of endogeneity between schooling and smoking behavior. It is shown that schooling reduces the odds that men ages 25 to 54 smoke. Schooling also reduces thc odds that women agcs 25 to 44 smoke. Schooling either has no effect or a positive effect on the likelihood that older men and women snloke.
Start Smoking Earlier, Smoke More: Does Education Matter?
2020
Cigarette smoking as one of the major public health issues has been debated for decades, while little is known about its relation to initial smoking age from the perspective of human capital. This study investigates the long-term effects of initial smoking age on cigarette consumption and the role of education on its effects among male smokers in China, using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) for the period from 1993 to 2015. Considering the time-invariant property of initial smoking age, the Mundlak (MK) estimator and instrumental variable (IV) estimation are applied to control for individual heterogeneity and the endogeneity of education in cigarette consumption. Two institutional changes of the Nine Years Compulsory Schooling Law and the Provisions on the Prohibition of Using Child Labor are used as instruments for years of education. The empirical estimations indicate that initial smoking age has a statistically significant and positive impact on cigarette consumption. Smokers who start smoking before 18 years of age smoke approximately 11% of cigarettes (1.8 cigarettes) more per day than smokers who start smoking after 18 years of age. We also find that education has a negative effect cigarette consumption but its interaction with initial smoking age shows a positive effect on cigarette consumption. This suggests that additional education can reduce cigarette consumption, but this effect is counteracted due to the early starting of smoking. The effect of initial smoking age is robust for rural and urban samples, while the interaction effect is only significant for the rural sample. Our results provide compelling evidence for the importance of early smoking prevention and intervention.