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. 2020 Nov 11;20:1689. doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-09741-y

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics by cohort and sex

Cohort 1948–60 Cohort 1967–79
Men Women Men Women
N = 1437 N = 1815 N = 2280 N = 3274
Age at health study, M (SD) 41.0 (3.7) 39.7 (4.0) 25.7 (3.7) 25.5 (3.7)
Ages at SA follow-up, range 40–66 40–66 21–47 21–47
Educational attainment
 1 Primary/lower secondary 13.9% 19.2% 6.6% 6.8%
 2 Upper secondary, basic 21.1% 25.6% 3.5% 4.0%
 3 Upper secondary, final year 26.4% 16.9% 31.5% 27.2%
 4 Post-secondary/ Undergrad. 25.8% 33.1% 37.6% 46.3%
 5 Master or higher 12.9% 5.3% 20.8% 15.8%
 Missing n 3 6 1 2
BMI
 Normal (18.5–25 kg/m2) 59.3% 78.6% 71.5% 78.2%
 Missing n 25 69 72 141
Physical activity
 Never 42.0% 42.6% 4.9% 3.0%
 < once a week 15.8% 13.8% 27.7% 25.0%
 1–2 times per week 26.5% 29.3% 36.8% 40.3%
 3 = < times per week 15.7% 14.3% 30.6% 31.6%
 Missing n 41 79 25 27
Smoking
 Current/Past 61.6% 60.8% 41.9% 46.5%
 Missing n 151 168 21 32
Health behavior composite (z-score)a .55 (1.05) .41 (0.95) −.23 (0.93) −.27 (0.89)
 Missing n 187 267 111 190
Proportion of sickness absence
 M (SD) 6.3% (11.1) 9.3% (13.4) 2.9% (6.3) 5.8% (8.7)b

aHealth behavior composite contains BMI, physical activity and smoking; bDoes not include sickness absence granted for pregnancy related diagnoses. Including this would yield a mean of 7.4% (SD: 9.2)