CAUSES OF DEATH AND MORTALITY IN THREE NORWEGIAN COUNTIES

(used in examples 1.12, 3.3, 3.13, 3.15, 4.1, 4.4, and 5.5)

 

Background:

During the years 1974-78 all men and women aged 35-49 years who were residing in three rural Norwegian counties (Oppland, Sogn og Fjordane, and Finmark) were invited to a cardiovascular health screening exam. More than 90% participated in the screening and gave a self-report on their past and current smoking habits. Mortality in the resulting cohort of about 50 000 individuals was followed-up to the end of the year 2000 by record linkage with the cause of death registry at Statistics Norway. Because there are few individuals at risk below the age of 40 years, survival times are left-truncated at 40 years. Moreover, as the focus is on middle-aged death, survival times are right-censored at 70 years (if not dead or already censored by that age).

 

In the book we use a subset of 4000 individuals (2086 males and 1914 females) selected at random from this cohort to study the mortality for the four broad classes of cause of death (cf. examples 3.3, 3.13, 3.15):

1) Cancer

2) Cardiovascular disease including sudden death

3) Other medical causes

4) Alcohol abuse, chronic liver disease, and accidents and violence

 

The data are also used to study the effect of smoking habits on the total mortality (cf. examples 4.1, 4.4, and 5.5)

 

 

Coding:

agestart:  age at health screening exam (or 40 years if screened before that age).

agestop:  age in years at death or censoring

dead:      indicator for death from any cause (0=censored, 1=dead)

dead1:    indicator for cancer death (0=censored or dead by other cause than cancer, 1=dead from cancer)

dead2:    indicator for death from cardiovascular disease, including sudden death (0=censored or dead from other cause than cardiovascular disease, 1=dead from cardiovascular disease)

dead3:    indicator for death from other medical causes (0=censored or dead from other medical causes, 1=dead from other medical causes)

dead4:    indicator for death from alcohol abuse, liver disease, and accidents and violence (0=censored or dead from other causes than alcohol abuse, liver disease, and accidents and violence , 1=dead from alcohol abuse, liver disease, and accidents and violence)

sex:        sex (1=male, 2=female)

county:   county in Norway (5=Oppland, 14=Sogn og Fjordane, 20=Finmark)

sbp:    systoloc blood preasure at health screening exam

bmi:   body mass index at health screening exam

smkstart:    age started smoking

smkgr:  smoking group (1=never smoked, 2=former smoker, 3=1-9 cigarettes per day, 4=10-19 cigarettes per day, 5=20+ cigarettes per day, 6=pipe or cigar)

 

Acknowledgement:

We thank Drs. Stein Emil Vollset and Aage Tverdal at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health for useful discussions and for making the data available.