Smoking's effect on nurses' health, death rates.

A new UCLA School of Nursing study is the first to reveal the devastating consequences of smoking on the nursing profession. The Nurses' Health Study (237,648 female registered nurses) is the largest study of women's health in the world. "From a workforce perspective, however, the findings also hold a mirror up to the well-being of nurses, the largest group of health care professionals in the country." "Quitting smoking made a big difference in enhancing longevity, especially among nurses in their late 70s. "Death rates among former smokers that age were 1.5 times higher than those of non-smokers, while current smokers were 2.3 times more likely to have died by that age than nurses who never smoked." According to the most recent data, the smoking rate among registered nurses nationwide is nearly 12 percent.