Short term effects of cigarette smoking on hospitalisation and associated lost workdays in a young healthy population

Abstract

Objective: There are relatively few published studies conducted among people of younger ages examining short term outcomes of cigarette smoking, and only a small number with outcomes important to employers. The present study was designed to assess the short term effects of smoking on hospitalisation and lost workdays.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Military population.

Subjects: 87 991 men and women serving on active duty in the US Army during 1987 to 1998 who took a health risk appraisal two or more times and were followed for an average of 2.4 years.

Main outcome measures: Rate ratios for hospitalisations and lost workdays, and fraction of hospitalisations and lost workdays attributable to current smoking (population attributable fraction).

Results: Compared with never smokers, men and women who were current smokers had higher short term rates of hospitalisation and lost workdays for a broad range of conditions. Population attributable fractions (PAFs) for outcomes not related to injury or pregnancy were 7.5% (men) and 5.0% (women) for hospitalisation, and 14.1% (men) and 3.0% (women) for lost workdays. Evidence suggests that current smoking may have been under reported in this cohort, in which case the true PAFs would be higher than those reported.

Conclusions: In this young healthy population, substantial fractions of hospitalisations and lost workdays were attributable to current smoking, particularly among men.