BMJ  2003;327:502 (30 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7413.502

Letter

Passive smoking

Inverse correlation of smoking and education should have raised suspicion

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Editor—It is well known that smoking is inversely correlated with education level; the highest percentage of smokers is found among those people who have not completed high school. This inverse correlation of smoking and education has been true for many years. It is referred to in the 15th edition (1977-9) of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Clearly, this casts suspicion on the data entry and the programming used by Enstrom and Kabat to perform their analysis,¹ because they find that the highest frequency of smoking is associated with the highest level of education.

From their table 2 (male never smokers) and table 3 (female never smokers) sorted by smoking status of spouse, they show that the heaviest smokers ( 40 cigarettes/day) are more likely to have completed high school than are non-smokers. Further, among smokers, they show that for those smoking a higher number of cigarettes the likelihood of completing high . . . [Full text of this article]

4 Woodpark Circle, Lexington, MA 02421, USA glasej@alum.mit.edu

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Tong, E. K., Glantz, S. A. (2007). Tobacco Industry Efforts Undermining Evidence Linking Secondhand Smoke With Cardiovascular Disease. Circulation 116: 1845-1854 [Abstract] [Full text]  
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