The Adoption of Smoking and Its Effect on the Mortality Gender Gap in Netherlands: A Historical Perspective (original) (raw)
Related papers
Comparison of cohort smoking intensities in Denmark and the Netherlands
Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2002
To assess the usefulness of the general framework of the smoking epidemic. We use lung cancer mortality as an indicator for smoking intensity and employ an age-cohort model to accommodate the long-lasting and cumulative effects. Dutch males have higher risks than Danish males, but the risks for the younger cohorts have been declining faster in the Netherlands than in Denmark. Danish women have about twice the risk of Dutch women, and in both countries the risks for the younger cohorts are increasing. The smoking epidemic began at about the same time in Denmark and the Netherlands. Dutch males, however, seem to have smoked more but to have given up smoking more quickly than Danish males. Danish females were quicker to take up smoking than Dutch females. Within the general framework of the smoking epidemic, differences in timing and levels can produce large differences between countries. For the purposes of assessing smoking-related risks, including projections, the smoking epidemic f...
Smoking. The contribution of smoking to sex differences in life expectancy
The European Journal of Public Health, 1997
Several studies have shown that smoking is a major cause of the lower life expectancy of men compared to women, but there has been no research to assess how far international differences in sex differences in life expectancy and changes in these differences can be accounted for by smoking. This paper gives quantitative estimates of the effects of smoking on sex differences in life expectancy at age 35 years in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands during 1970-1989. The data on cause-specific mortality by age and sex were obtained from standardized computer-tape transcripts of the WHO mortality data bank. An indirect method based on lung cancer mortality as the indicator of the cumulative effects of smoking was used to estimate the numbers of smokingattributable deaths in 4 periods. The validity of the method was assessed by comparing the relevant parts of the results with those obtained in 8 national follow-up studies. On average, 2.4 years or more than 40% of the total sex difference in life expectancy in 1970-1974 was estimated to be attributable to smoking in the 5 countries. By 1985-1989 the contribution of smoking dropped to 1.8 years or approximately 30% of the total difference. The contribution of smoking to the sex difference was greatest in The Netherlands and smallest In Sweden. As a result of the decline in smoking-attributable male mortality, the sex difference in life expectancy diminished in Finland in the 1980s. In the other countries the difference continued to grow despite the increase in the loss of female life expectancy caused by smoking.
Smoking and Inequalities in Mortality in 11 European Countries: A Birth Cohort Analysis
Purpose: To study the trends of smoking-attributable mortality among the low- and high-educated in consecutive birth cohorts in 11 European countries. Methods: Register-based mortality data were collected among adults aged 30 to 79 years in 11 European countries between 1971 and 2012. Smoking-attributable deaths were estimated indirectly from lung cancer mortality rates using the Preston-Glei-Wilmoth method. Rate ratios and rate differences among the low and high-educated were estimated and used to estimate the contribution of inequality in smoking-attributable mortality to inequality in total mortality.Results: In most countries, smoking-attributable mortality decreased in consecutive birth cohorts born between 1906 and 1961 among low and high-educated men and high-educated women, but not among low-educated women among whom it increased. Relative educational inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality increased among both men and women with no signs of turning points. Absolute i...
BMJ open, 2014
Providing lifetime smoking prevalence data and gender-specific cigarette consumption data for use in epidemiological studies of tobacco-induced cancer in Norway. Characterising smoking patterns in birth cohorts is essential for evaluating the impact of tobacco control interventions and predicting smoking-related mortality. Norway. Previously analysed annual surveys of smoking habits from 1954 to 1992, and individual lifetime smoking histories collected in 1965 from a sample of people born in 1893-1927, were supplemented with new annual surveys of smoking habits from 1993 to 2013. Age range 15-74 years. Current smoking proportions in 5-year gender-and-birth cohorts of people born between 1890 and 1994. The proportion of smokers increased in male cohorts until the 1950s, when the highest proportion of male smokers (76-78%) was observed among those born in 1915-1934. Among women, the peak (52%) occurred 20 years later, in women born in 1940-1949. After 1970 smoking has declined in all ...
BMC Public Health, 2012
Background: Widening of socioeconomic status (SES) inequalities in smoking prevalence has occurred in several Western countries from the mid 1970's onwards. However, little is known about a widening of SES inequalities in smoking consumption, initiation and cessation. Methods: Repeated cross-sectional population surveys from 2001 to 2008 (n 18,000 per year) were used to examine changes in smoking prevalence, smoking consumption (number of cigarettes per day), initiation ratios (ratio of ever smokers to all respondents), and quit ratios (ratio of former smokers to ever smokers) in the Netherlands. Education level and income level were used as indicators of SES and results were reported separately for men and women. Results: Lower educated respondents were significantly more likely to be smokers, smoked more cigarettes per day, had higher initiation ratios, and had lower quit ratios than higher educated respondents. Income inequalities were smaller than educational inequalities and were not all significant, but were in the same direction as educational inequalities. Among women, educational inequalities widened significantly between 2001 and 2008 for smoking prevalence, smoking initiation, and smoking cessation. Among low educated women, smoking prevalence remained stable between 2001 and 2008 because both the initiation and quit ratio increased significantly. Among moderate and high educated women, smoking prevalence decreased significantly because initiation ratios remained constant, while quit ratios increased significantly. Among men, educational inequalities widened significantly between 2001 and 2008 for smoking consumption only. Conclusions: While inequalities in smoking prevalence were stable among Dutch men, they increased among women, due to widening inequalities in both smoking cessation and initiation. Both components should be addressed in equity-oriented tobacco control policies.
Tobacco Control
Background Smoking contributes to socioeconomic inequalities in mortality, but the extent to which this contribution has changed over time and driven widening or narrowing inequalities in total mortality remains unknown. We studied socioeconomic inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality and their contribution to inequalities in total mortality in 1990-1994 and 2000-2004 in 14 European countries. Methods We collected, harmonised and standardised population-wide data on all-cause and lung-cancer mortality by age, gender, educational and occupational level in 14 European populations in 1990-1994 and 2000-2004. Smoking-attributable mortality was indirectly estimated using the Preston-Glei-Wilmoth method. Results In 2000-2004, smoking-attributable mortality was higher in lower socioeconomic groups in all countries among men, and in all countries except Spain, Italy and Slovenia, among women, and the contribution of smoking to socioeconomic inequalities in mortality varied between 19% and 55% among men, and between −1% and 56% among women. Since 1990-1994, absolute inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality and the contribution of smoking to inequalities in total mortality have decreased in most countries among men, but increased among women. Conclusions In many European countries, smoking has become less important as a determinant of socioeconomic inequalities in mortality among men, but not among women. Inequalities in smoking remain one of the most important entry points for reducing inequalities in mortality.
BMC public health, 2015
Since 2001 the Netherlands has shown a sharp upturn in life expectancy (LE) after a longer period of slower improvement. This study assessed whether changes in healthcare expenditure (HCE) explain this reversal in trends in LE. As an alternative explanation, the impact of changes in smoking behavior was also evaluated. To quantify the contribution of changes in HCE to changes in LE, we estimated a health-production function using a dynamic panel regression approach with data on 19 OECD countries (1980-2009), accounting for temporal and spatial correlation. Smoking-attributable mortality was estimated using the indirect Peto-Lopez method. As compared to 1990-1999, during 2000-2009 LE in the Netherlands increased by 1.8 years in females and by 1.5 years in males. Whereas changes in the impact of smoking between the two periods made almost no contribution to the acceleration of the increase in LE, changes in the trend of HCE added 0.9 years to the LE increase between 2000 and 2009. The...
The negative association between education and mortality is well established in international research. The harmful effect of smoking on health is well known. However, the contribution of smoking to educational inequality in mortality varies across studies, and in some studies, the contribution is negligible. This paper demonstrates the use of an analytical approach to provide one explanation for this phenomenon. Analysing nationally representative survey data for two cohorts of Australian women born in 1920-1928 and 1945-1951 respectively, we found that in the 1994-2006 period, the less educated are subject to higher mortality by 38-50%. In the total sample, the smoking contribution to excess mortality due to lower education is negligible. However, when the cohorts are analysed independently, the smoking contribution ranges from -13% among those born in 1920-1928 to +23% among those born in [1945][1946][1947][1948][1949][1950][1951]. The smoking contribution is only seen in the cohort-specific analysis because smoking is more prevalent among tertiary degree holders in the earlier cohort but more prevalent among less educated women in the later cohort. The disaggregated analytical approach taken here deserves further attention in research on inequality.