Smoking Kills, Irrespective Of Social Class And Gender.

A well-off professional who smokes has a much lower survival rate than a non-smoking low-paid worker of the same sex concludes new research published on the British Medical Journal website [BMJ 2009;338:b480]. The study, one of the first to examine the long-term impact of smoking on older men and women, shows that smoking itself is a greater source of health inequalities than social position. Among both men and women, smokers of all social classes had a much higher risk of premature death than non-smokers from even the lowest social classes. Surprisingly, non-smoking women in the lowest social classes had one of the lowest death rates. The research also found that the survival advantage that women normally have over men is cancelled out by smoking.