Characteristics of Nonsmoking Women in NHANES I and NHANES I Epidemiologic Follow-up Study with Exposure to Spouses Who Smoke

Abstract

Few studies have examined the relation between passive smoking and dietary intake in a large population. This report examines the nutrition and behavioral characteristics of 3,896 nonsmoking women from the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I) population in relation to exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. The data indicate that nonsmoking women who were exposed to husbands who smoked were more likely to be older, have lower education, live in the city, and have other health behaviors that could increase their risk of lung cancer compared with nonsmoking women with husbands who did not smoke. The nonexposed women were more likely to take vitamin supplements, to not drink alcohol, and to consume higher levels of dietary vitamin A, vitamin C, and calcium. The exposed and nonexposed women showed no difference in the levels of fatty acid intake nor in the levels of several other foods from the food frequency list after correction for age. Many of the differences that the authors observed between the women who were exposed and nonexposed to passive smoking could affect the risk of cancer. Therefore, they recommend that future studies of nonsmokers examine the influence of both passive smoking and diet on the risk of disease rather than examine the influence of a single factor.

Association of environmental tobacco smoke exposure with socioeconomic status in a population of 7725 New Zealanders

“…Some previously published data are available about the associations of ETS exposure with socioeconomic status among non-smoking adults [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] and children. [22][23][24] These data either showed that ETS exposure was inversely associated with socioeconomic status, 14-17 22 23 or their evidence was equivocal.…”

“…Three of the studies involving adult populations did test for statistical significance and adjust for confounding. [14][15][16] Each of these studies reported moderate-to-strong inverse associations of ETS exposure with socioeconomic status. These studies were limited somewhat, however, by small sample size, 16 study populations restricted to women, 14 16 use of binary indicators only of socioeconomic status, 15 and lack of control for potential confounding by ethnicity.…”

Epidemiologic Studies of Fatal and Nonfatal Cardiovascular Disease and ETS Exposure from Spousal Smoking

“…Steenland et al (45) found that the positive associations between serum cotinine and body mass index and the negative correlation with dietary carotenoids were greatly diminished by adjusting for age, sex, race, and education. Earlier studies of the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in relation to spousal smoking were too small to be informative (47)(48)(49)(50).…”

Epidemiology of environmental tobacco smoke exposure

“…For example, it is documented that non-smokers living with smokers have lower intakes of certain micronutrients (Matanoski et al, 1995). Sidney et al (1989) and Le Marchand et al (1991) estimated that the effect estimate for ETS and lung cancer would decrease from 2.0 to 1.8 after adjustment for b-carotene intake.…”