@article{ref1,
title="Smoking and all-cause mortality among a cohort of urban transit operators",
journal="Journal of urban health",
year="2008",
author="Lipton, Robert and Cunradi, Carol B. and Chen, Meng-Jinn",
volume="85",
number="5",
pages="759-765",
abstract="This study assesses the contribution of smoking to all-cause mortality among a primarily minority cohort of urban transit operators. Survey and medical exam data, obtained from 1,785 workers (61% African American; 9% female) who participated in the 1983-1985 San Francisco MUNI Health and Safety Study, were matched against state and national death records through 2000. At baseline, approximately 45% of the workers were current smokers, 30% were former smokers, and 25% had never smoked. Covariates were demographic factors (gender, age, race/ethnicity) and alcohol use (average number of drinks per week). There were 198 deaths during the follow-up period. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated that the probability of survival did not differ between former and current smokers, but was significantly lower compared to never smokers (p < 0.001). Data were further analyzed using Cox regression with age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of smoking, and average weekly number of drinks as predictors of mortality. The results showed that years of smoking significantly contributed to mortality (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.023; p < 0.001). Compared to Asian-American transit operators, elevated mortality risk was observed for African-American operators (HR = 2.78, p < 0.01) and white operators (HR = 2.93, p < 0.01). Gender and average weekly number of drinks were not significantly associated with mortality. Although rates of smoking have declined over the past two decades among blue-collar workers, elevated prevalence of former smoking will likely contribute to excess mortality among blue-collar populations.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1099-3460",
doi="10.1007/s11524-008-9295-6",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-008-9295-6"
}