The Relationship Between Human Smoking Habits and Death Rates

Hammond, Edward; Horn, Dániel

doi:10.1001/jama.1954.03690330020006

Cited by 314 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…In view of this, investigations by means of the so-called prospective method, against which, it was thought, this objection could not be raised, were set up. The preliminary results of two of these prospective investigations have now become known (Doll and Hill, 1954;Hammond and Horn, 1954). They seem fully to corroborate the conclusions reached previously in the retrospective investigations.…”

supporting

confidence: 77%

“…Hammond and Horn's (1954) death rates for all causes are almost one-third lower than those of the official mortality statistics. Quite irrespective of smoking or non-smoking this material bears the mark of selection in favour of low death rates.…”

mentioning

confidence: 70%

“…In contrast with the findings of Hammond and Horn (1954), Doll and Hill (1954) found no excess of death rates for death from "other diseases" and from "cancer other than lung cancer ", and only a small excess for death from" coronary disease ". This seems to indicate that among their smokers only little reluctance to co-operate existed, which would be in keeping with the fact that the percentage of smokers in their study, and the percentage of smokers found in a so,ial survey of Greater London, are almost the same.…”

mentioning

confidence: 76%

“…Therefore, their death rates cannot really be compared with the official death rates for the 50-69 age group of the entire American population-which age group is approximately 7 months younger and has correspondingly lower death rates-as is done by Berkson (1955) in his Tables 4 and 7, and by us in our Table I. To what degree the non-smokers are over-represented in Hammond and Horn's (1954) material cannot exactly be ascertained, one of the reasons being that the persons under review are not truly representative of the entire American population. However, Berkson's (1955) remark on page 329 and his Table 3 illustrate that he may be correct when he writes that the surplus of non-smokers must be rather big.…”

mentioning

confidence: 83%

“…He bases his opinion mainly on two facts: (1) the death rates found by Hammond and Horn are lower than the rates given by the official American mortality statistics, and (2) the percentage of non-smokers in Hammond and Horn's population exceeds the percentage found in the general American population. * Berkson (1955) goes so far as to infer that the excess of the death rates for smokers, as found by Hammond and Horn (1954) in lung cancer and in coronary disease. might wholly be explained by the action of this selection.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Significance of Selection in Prospective Investigations into an Association between Smoking and Lung Cancer

Korteweg¹

1956

Br J Cancer

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IT will never be possible to furnish mathematical proof of a causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer. This means that, before action against smoking can be taken, in view of the danger of lung cancer, we must be satisfied on the following two points. First there must exist strong indications that smoking is an important causative factor in lung cancer, and, secondly, it must be highly improbable that one or more other factors could be the main cause.As far as the latter point is concerned: all attempts to exculpate smoking have so far been unsuccessful. The longer such success remains unachieved, the smaller the probability that the greatest danger might lie in other still unknown factors.As regards the first point: there is no doubt whatsoever that the indications that there is a danger inherent in smoking are very strong. The results of all retrospective investigations invariably implicate smoking.However, against this retrospective method of investigation a serious objection can be raised: the material for comparison, a group of persons not suffering from lung cancer, is necessarily highly selected. In view of this, investigations by means of the so-called prospective method, against which, it was thought, this objection could not be raised, were set up. The preliminary results of two of these prospective investigations have now become known (Doll and Hill, 1954;Hammond and Horn, 1954). They seem fully to corroborate the conclusions reached previously in the retrospective investigations.However, Berkson (1955) alleges that the prospective method also involves the danger of selection. Berkson attempts to demonstrate that this is the case in Hammond and Horn's material. He bases his opinion mainly on two facts: (1) the death rates found by Hammond and Horn are lower than the rates given by the official American mortality statistics, and (2) the percentage of non-smokers in Hammond and Horn's population exceeds the percentage found in the general American population.* Berkson (1955) goes so far as to infer that the excess of the death rates for smokers, as found by Hammond and Horn (1954) in lung cancer and in coronary disease. might wholly be explained by the action of this selection. It seemed necessary, therefore, to test the correctness of this view thoroughly. This will be done in the present paper.

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supporting

confidence: 77%

mentioning

confidence: 70%

mentioning

confidence: 76%

mentioning

confidence: 83%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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