Can national smoking prevalence be monitored using primary care medical records data

infectious and parasitic (1.57, 1.07 to 2.29), genitourinary (1.46, 1.04 to 2.04), circulatory (1.07, 1.01 to 1.12), and external (non-medical) (1.17, 1.00 to 1.37) causes and decreased for deaths attributed to in situ, benign and unspecified neoplasms (0.60, 0.37 to 0.99).There was no clear relation between chemical exposure group and causespecific mortality.The mortality of each group was lower than that of the general population (SMR 0.88, 0.85 to 0.90; 0.82, 0.80 to 0.84 respectively).3457 cancers were reported in Porton Down veterans and 3380 in non-Porton Down veterans.While overall cancer morbidity was the same (RR 1.00, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.05), Porton Down veterans had higher rates of ill-defined malignant neoplasms (1.12; 1.02 to 1.22), in situ neoplasms (1.45; 1.06 to 2.00) and those of uncertain or unknown behaviour (1.32; 1.01 to 1.73).Conclusions: Mortality was slightly higher in Porton Down than non-Porton Down veterans.With the lack of information on other important factors, such as smoking or service overseas, it is not possible to attribute the small excess mortality to chemical exposures at Porton Down.Overall cancer morbidity in Porton Down veterans was no different from that in non-Porton Down veterans

Data collection · Environmental health · Family medicine · Medical record · MEDLINE · Primary care · Quality (philosophy) · Statistics · Global Cancer Incidence and Screening · Health disparities and outcomes · Health Promotion and Cardiovascular Prevention · Medicine

• Insights into social disparities in smoking prevalence using Mosaic, a novel measure of socioeconomic status

  Open Access•Aarohi Sharma, Sarah Lewis et al.•BMC Public Health•2010

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