International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 28, 824-828, Copyright © 1999 by International Epidemiological Association
SH Jee, H Ohrr and IS Kim
BACKGROUND: Although smoking remains uncommon among Korean women, lung
cancer mortality is rapidly escalating. METHODS: We investigated the
effects of spousal smoking in 160130 Korean women, aged 40-88, who received
health insurance from the Korea Medical Insurance Corporation (KMIC).
Exposure data were collected during medical examinations conducted between
April 1992 and June 1994. The primary outcome variable was the incidence of
lung cancer defined by hospital admissions between July 1994 and December
1997. Standardized rates for the incidence of lung cancer were assessed
according to the smoking habits of their husbands. RESULTS: At baseline (n
= 160 130), 53.9% of husbands were smokers and 23.3% were ex-smokers, while
1.1% of wives (n = 1756) were current smokers and 0.6% (n = 938) were
ex-smokers. During follow-up, 79 cases of lung cancer occurred among
non-smoking wives (n = 157436). Wives of heavy smokers were found to have a
higher risk of developing lung cancer. The husbands' smoking habits did not
affect their wives' risk of developing other cancers such as those of the
stomach, liver and cervix, but they did affect breast cancer, which has a
significantly higher risk in relation to the longer duration of husbands'
smoking. In Poission regression models, adjusting for the age of both
husband and wife, socioeconomic status, occupation, residency and vegetable
intake, the rate ratio (RR) of lung cancer in non-smoking wives was 1.9
(95% CI: 1.0-3.5) in current smokers and 1.3 (95% CI: 0.6- 2.7) in
ex-smokers. The RR of lung cancer was 3.1 (95% CI: 1.4-6.6) in wives of
husbands who had smoked for 30 years or more compared with wives of
non-smoking husbands. CONCLUSION: In Korea, the incidence of lung cancer is
higher among non-smoking women whose husbands smoke, and a dose-response
relationship seems to exist.
ARTICLES
Effects of husbands' smoking on the incidence of lung cancer in Korean women
Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control, Graduate School of Health Science and Management, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. jsunha@yumc.yonsei.ac.kr
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