Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Inter-Relationships Linking Probability Of Becoming A Case Of Nicotine Dependence With Frequency Of Tobacco Cigarette Smoking, Olga A. Vsevolozhskaya, James C. Anthony

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION: Once smoking starts, some tobacco cigarette smokers (TCS) can make very rapid transitions into tobacco dependence syndromes (TCD). With adjustment for smoking frequency, we posit female excess risk for this rapid-onset TCD. In a novel application of functional analysis for tobacco research, we estimate four Hill function parameters and plot TCD risk against a gradient of smoking frequency, as observed quite soon after smoking onset.

METHODS: In aggregate, the National Surveys of Drug Use and Health, 2004-2013, identified 1546 newly incident TCS in cross-sectional research, each with standardized TCD assessment.

RESULTS: Hill function estimates contradict our apparently over-simplistic hypothesis. …