Table 2.

Baseline characteristics stratified by the occurrence of incident cancer

Characteristic (N=34691)	No incident cancer (n=29561)	Incident cancer (n=5130)	P value*
Age, years	53 (49–58)	55 (50–61)	<0.001
Race/ethnicity, %			<0.001
White	27813 (94.9)	4904 (96.5)
Other	1495 (5.1)	180 (3.5)
Body mass index, kg/m2	24.9 (22.5–28.3)	25.1 (22.6–28.9)	0.002
Height, meters	1.65 (1.60–1.68)	1.65 (1.60–1.68)	<0.001
Hypertension, %			<0.001
Yes	7623 (25.8)	1537 (30.0)
No	21938 (74.2)	3593 (70.0)
Diabetes, %			0.01
Yes	768 (2.6)	166 (3.2)
No	28793 (97.4)	4964 (96.8)
Hypercholesterolemia, %			<0.001
Yes	8793 (29.8)	1696 (33.1)
No	20768 (70.3)	3434 (66.9)
Smoking, %			<0.001
Current/past	14031 (47.5)	2733 (53.3)
Never	15505 (52.5)	2396 (46.7)
Alcohol consumption, %			<0.001
Rarely/never	13173 (44.6)	2176 (42.4)
1–3 drinks per month	3925 (13.3)	658 (12.8)
1–6 drinks per week	9511 (32.2)	1656 (32.3)
≥1 drink per day	2942 (10.0)	640 (12.5)
Highest education level, %			0.49
< bachelor’s degree	16163 (55.7)	2860 (56.5)
Bachelor’s degree	6909 (23.8)	1175 (23.2)
Master’s degree or doctorate	5971 (20.6)	1023 (20.2)
Physical activity, kcal/week	592 (197–1342)	550 (182–1321)	0.02
Hormone replacement therapy, %			0.002
Current	12166 (41.2)	2151 (42.0)
Past	2500 (8.5)	501 (9.8)
Never	14838 (50.3)	2469 (48.2)
Number of screening tests for colon cancer	2 (1–3)	2 (0–3)	<0.001
Number of screening tests for breast cancer	7 (5–8)	6 (3–8)	<0.001

Data are medians (interquartile range) or counts (percentages). Number of observations across categories may not sum to the given numbers because of missing data.

^*Continuous and categorical variables were compared using Kruskal-Wallis tests and chi-square tests, respectively.