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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jan 27.
Published in final edited form as: Qual Life Res. 2008 Oct 18;17(10):1217–1227. doi: 10.1007/s11136-008-9404-8

Table 1.

Sample characteristics of women in the Nurses’ Health Study (1992/1993), 29 to 71 years of age, by US age-specific percentilesa of the physical health (PCS) and mental health (MCS) component scores of the Short Form-36®

Totals Percentiles
PCS
MCS
<25th 25–49th 50–74th >75th <25th 25–49th 50–74th >75th
Number of participants 158,734 29,541 34,866 38,649 55,678 35,351 48,886 38,332 36,165
Smoking status
    Never (%) 55.6 56.3 55.0 57.0 54.5 54.2 55.4 56.8 55.9
    Former (%) 32.0 30.3 31.7 31.3 33.5 30.0 31.9 32.2 33.8
    Current (%) 12.5 13.4 13.3 11.8 12.0 15.8 12.8 11.0 10.4
Years of smoking
Mean (SD)b 21.0 (12.2) 20.3 (11.4) 21.3 (12.3) 20.5 (12.0) 21.5 (12.7) 20.4 (11.4) 21.2 (12.5) 21.0 (12.4) 21.3 (12.6)
Years since quitting
Mean (SD)c 15.4 (10.8) 13.4 (10.2) 15.1 (10.9) 15.2 (10.6) 16.0 (11.0) 13.9 (10.0) 14.9 (10.9) 15.5 (10.9) 16.1 (11.0)
    <3 (%) 11.1 8.9 8.2 7.4 10.0 9.1 8.1 7.2
    3–7 (%) 23.3 21.6 21.3 20.2 21.8 22.0 20.7 20.6
    ≥8 (%) 65.6 69.5 70.6 72.4 68.2 68.9 71.3 72.2
Cigarettes per dayd
Mean (SD) 16.8 (10.3) 18.5 (10.8) 17.2 (10.3) 16.3 (10.1) 15.9 (9.9) 18.0 (10.8) 16.5 (9.9) 15.9 (10.0) 16.5 (10.2)
    1–14 (%) 43.7 37.7 42.0 45.2 47.4 39.5 44.1 47.6 45.1
    15–24 (%) 39.1 39.4 39.7 39.4 38.5 39.3 40.4 37.8 38.4
    ≥25 (%) 17.2 22.9 18.4 15.4 14.1 21.3 15.6 14.7 16.5
Live alone (%) 4.9 6.2 4.5 4.6 4.7 7.4 4.6 4.1 3.8
BMI (kg/m2)
Mean (SD) 25.6 (5.4) 27.9 (7.0) 26.5 (5.7) 25.2 (4.8) 24.2 (4.1) 26.0 (5.8) 25.6 (5.4) 25.2 (5.1) 25.8 (5.5)
    <19 (%) 2.9 2.7 2.4 2.8 3.4 3.2 2.9 2.8 2.6
    19–30 (%) 78.9 65.5 74.0 81.7 87.0 76.0 79.4 81.3 78.4
    >30 (%) 18.3 31.8 23.6 15.5 9.7 20.9 17.7 15.9 19.1
(met-hrs/wk)
Mean (SD) 20.2 (25.8) 16.6 (23.6) 17.8 (23.0) 20.5 (25.2) 23.5 (28.6) 18.0 (24.1) 19.3 (24.9) 21.5 (26.6) 22.4 (27.7)
Comorbid disease (%) 34.6 44.3 39.2 31.3 28.8 35.1 34.9 32.1 36.3
Tobacco-related comorbid disease (%)b 13.6 18.8 16.1 11.9 10.4 13.5 13.8 12.3 14.7
a

Percentile cut-points using SF-36® normative scores for US females, according to age

b

Current and former smokers, n = 70,548

c

Former smokers

d

Current smokers

PCS = physical component summary score

MCS = mental component summary score

Met = metabolic

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