Table 3.

Hazard ratios for total mortality according to smoking behaviors during the smoking cessation period in the Nurses’ Health Study.

	Deaths/Person-years	Mortality rate*	Age-adjusted HR (95% CI)	Age and BMI-adjusted HR (95% CI)1	Multivariable HR (95% CI)2
RA cohort (n=938)
Current – continue	23/627	3,670	1.00 (Ref)	1.00 (Ref)	1.00 (Ref)
Current – quit	50/1,586	3,152	0.52 (0.30–0.89)	0.53 (0.31–0.91)	0.58 (0.33–1.01)
Variable smoking	57/2,552	2,234	0.49 (0.29–0.84)	0.50 (0.29–0.86)	0.55 (0.32–0.95)
Past – past	109/5,798	1,880	0.28 (0.17–0.46)	0.28 (0.17–0.47)	0.31 (0.19–0.52)
Never – never	74/5,755	1,286	0.20 (1.12–0.33)	0.20 (0.12–0.34)	0.21 (0.13–0.36)
Comparison cohort (n=8,951)
Current – continue	182/7,002	2,599	1.00 (Ref)	1.00 (Ref)	1.00 (Ref)
Current – quit	207/13,147	1,575	0.44 (0.36–0.54)	0.45 (0.37–0.55)	0.47 (0.39–0.58)
Variable smoking	304/22,954	1,324	0.44 (0.36–0.52)	0.44 (0.37–0.53)	0.47 (0.39–0.56)
Past – past	621/47,679	1,302	0.31 (0.26–0.37)	0.31 (0.26–0.36)	0.30 (0.26–0.36)
Never – never	728/71,099	1,024	0.25 (0.21–0.30)	0.24 (0.20–0.29)	0.24 (0.21–0.29)

Each RA case was matched with up to 10 women without RA on age and calendar year at index date to form the comparison cohort.

^*Per 100,000 person-years.

¹Adjusted for age (years), questionnaire period, and body mass index category (underweight, normal, overweight, obese).

²Adjusted for age (years), questionnaire period, BMI category (underweight, normal, overweight, obese), physical activity (hours of moderate or vigorous exercise per week, continuous), census-tract household family income (<$40K, $40K+ per year), Alternative Healthy Eating Index score (tertiles), and Multimorbidity Weighted Index (continuous).

BMI, body mass index; CI, confidence interval; HR, hazard ratio; RA, rheumatoid arthritis; SD, standard deviation.