TY - JOUR T1 - Does the association between smoking and mortality differ by socioeconomic status? JF - Soc.Sci.Med. Y1 - 2012 A1 - Rana Charafeddine A1 - Herman Van Oyen A1 - Stefaan Demarest KW - 2001 KW - age KW - ALL KW - an KW - association KW - Belgian KW - Categories KW - confounder KW - education KW - Educational level KW - Educational-level KW - effect KW - Follow KW - Follow up KW - FOLLOW-UP KW - Gender KW - hazard KW - health KW - health interview survey KW - health interview surveys KW - Hypothesis KW - INFORMATION KW - interaction KW - Interview KW - Interview survey KW - IS KW - LEVEL KW - levels KW - Light KW - MEN KW - morbidity KW - mortality KW - ON KW - POISSON KW - Poisson regression KW - Ratio KW - Ratios KW - regression KW - result KW - results KW - Role KW - smokers KW - SMOKING KW - SOCIAL KW - Socioeconomic KW - Socioeconomic status KW - Socioeconomic-status KW - status KW - survey KW - surveys KW - WOMEN AB - 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 (1.18-5.70) for those with low levels of education, 4.03 (2.59-6.26) for those with intermediate levels of education and 3.78 (1.52-9.43) 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. VL - 74 CP - 9 U1 - 32376 M3 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.01.015 ER -