“…The independent variables were gender (male and female), age group (60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, and equal to or greater than 80 years), economic classification (A, B, C, D/ E) 14 , schooling (0, 1-4, and equal to or more than 5 years of study), self-reported tobacco use (yes or no), multimorbidity being the simultaneous occurrence of two or more NCDs 15 (yes or no), self-reported cardiovascular disease (yes or no), self-reported dyslipidemia (yes or no), self-reported overweight/obesity (yes or no), emotional distress in living with T2DM 16 (yes or no), complications resulting from T2DM (yes or no), adherence to drug therapy 17 (yes or no), medications used for T2DM ( oral antidiabetic only, insulin only, oral antidiabetic and insulin), and blood glucose control established with glycated hemoglobin less than 8.0% 18 (yes or no). The smoking burden (packs/year) was calculated by the number of daily cigarettes consumed, divided by 20, and multiplied by the number of smoking years 19 .…”