Relationship of Smoking and Cancer in Women: A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005-2006 Study

• Activity Number: 250
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 1, 2011 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Sunita Ghosh*+ and Qiahao Zhu
• Companies: Alberta Health Services-Cancer Care and Alberta Health Services-Cancer Care
• Keywords: NHANES ; cancer ; smoking ; GEE ; alcohol

Abstract

The relationship of cancer and smoking is complex and not very clear. Further more, there have not been many studies exploring the relationship of smoking and cancer. In the present paper we investigate the relationship of cancer (breast, ovarian, uterus and cervix cancer) and smoking history of patients using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data. Apart from smoking history we also studied other important factors known to be associated with cancer: body mass index, age, alcohol consumption and exposure to second hand smoke. Since NHANES data set uses a complex survey design, hence we used generalized estimating equation method to account for the stratification, clustering and unequal weighting. The results of the analysis suggest that smoking is positively associated with risk of cancer. The odds of having cancer are much higher in women who currently smoke or are ex-heavy smokers compared to non-smokers. These results were adjusted for alcohol consumption and age. The results of the present study confirm our hypothesis that cigarette smoking is positively associated with cancer among women.