Variations in the prevalence across countries of chronic bronchitis and smoking habits in young adults
- Peter Burney
- R de Marco
- I Cerveri
- Angelo Corsico
- Maria C. Zoia
- Simone Accordini
- Giuseppe Verlato
- Lucio Casali
DOIAbstract
The present work aims to assess the international variation in the prevalence of chronic bronchitis and its main risk factor, smoking habits, in young adults of 35 centres from 16 countries.Respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function were assessed in 17,966 subjects (20–44 yrs), randomly selected from the general population, in the frame of the European Community Respiratory Health Survey.The median prevalence of chronic bronchitis was 2.6%, with wide variations across countries (p<0.001; 0.7–9.7%). The prevalence of current smokers ranged 20.1–56.9% (p<0.001) with a median value of 40%. Current smoking was the major risk factor for chronic bronchitis, especially in males. Its effect increased according to number of pack-yrs: in males, the ...
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