Phone tracking in a follow-up study.
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Biomedical subjects
Montse Garcia
Publications and source records attributed to Montse Garcia.
Attrition in a population-based cohort eight years after baseline interview: The Cornella Health Interview Survey Follow-up (CHIS.FU) Study.
PURPOSE: To examine how response at follow-up varied from baseline sociodemographic data in a Spanish population-based cohort after 8 years of follow-up. METHODS: The Cornella Health Interview Survey Follow-up (CHIS.FU) Study is a population-based cohort study on lifestyle risk factors and their consequences on health status with 2500 participants at baseline. We have compared the distribution of baseline characteristics according to the results at follow-up (interview, decease, migration, or refusal). RESULTS: Almost two-thirds of the subjects who did not respond to the follow-up interview had died or moved to another town. Sex was a determinant of attrition in deceased and non-traced participants. Refusal appeared to be associated with working status and place of birth. Self-perceived health was one of the characteristics associated with mortality; subjects who perceived their health as poor were 2.6 times more likely to die than those who felt they were in good health. Disabled and retired subjects together with housewives showed a higher risk of dying than individuals still working. The determinants of attrition among emigrated subjects were civil status, age, level of studies, working status, and birth place. CONCLUSION: Although the attrition was non-random, there was no serious bias in estimates of change and in determinants of change due to attrition.
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Smoking reduction in a population-based cohort.
OBJECTIVE: To describe the factors associated with smoking reduction in a population-based cohort study in Cornella de Llobregat (Barcelona, Spain). MATERIAL AND METHODS: We used data from the Cornella Health Interview Survey Follow-up Study (n = 2,500). We included for the analysis those subjects who declared to be daily smokers at baseline (1994) and continued smoking after eight years of follow-up (n = 234). We considered as operational definition of reduction to reduce > or = 10 cigarettes/day. We calculated the relative risk (RR) of smoking reduction vs. maintain or increase tobacco consumption and 95% confidence intervals (CI) by means of a Breslow-Cox regression model. RESULTS: The average reduction on number of cigarettes among subjects who reduced their tobacco consumption was similar in men and women (13 cigarettes/day). The consumption intensity and self-perceived health are the characteristics associated with reduction: smoking reduction was associated with being a smoker > 20 cigarettes/day (RR = 3.25; 95% CI: 1.69-6.25) and individuals who declared having a suboptimal health showed a 3-fold risk of reducing smoking (RR = 3.13; 95% CI: 1.52-6.43). CONCLUSION: Heavy smokers and smokers with poor health are those smokers more likely to reduce their tobacco consumption. Specific actions targeting them could lead to increase reduction and even smoking cessation.
Adult↗
The Cornella Health Interview Survey Follow-Up (CHIS.FU) Study: design, methods, and response rate.
BACKGROUND: The aim of this report is to describe the main characteristics of the design, including response rates, of the Cornella Health Interview Survey Follow-up Study. METHODS: The original cohort consisted of 2,500 subjects (1,263 women and 1,237 men) interviewed as part of the 1994 Cornella Health Interview Study. A record linkage to update the address and vital status of the cohort members was carried out using, first a deterministic method, and secondly a probabilistic one, based on each subject's first name and surnames. Subsequently, we attempted to locate the cohort members to conduct the phone follow-up interviews. A pilot study was carried out to test the overall feasibility and to modify some procedures before the field work began. RESULTS: After record linkage, 2,468 (98.7%) subjects were successfully traced. Of these, 91 (3.6%) were deceased, 259 (10.3%) had moved to other towns, and 50 (2.0%) had neither renewed their last municipal census documents nor declared having moved. After using different strategies to track and to retain cohort members, we traced 92% of the CHIS participants. From them, 1,605 subjects answered the follow-up questionnaire. CONCLUSION: The computerized record linkage maximized the success of the follow-up that was carried out 7 years after the baseline interview. The pilot study was useful to increase the efficiency in tracing and interviewing the respondents.
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Gender and educational differences in smoking initiation rates in Spain from 1948 to 1992.
BACKGROUND: The pattern of smoking initiation is of importance in understanding the prevalence of smoking and future trends in tobacco-related diseases. OBJECTIVE: To analyse trends of cigarette smoking initiation rates by sex and educational level in Spain. METHODS: Pooled data from the 1993, 1995 and 1997 Spanish National Health Interview Surveys were used (16,365 males and 17,478 females aged >15 years). The age and smoking status of each subject were reconstructed for five calendar periods (1948-1952, 1958-1962, 1968-1972, 1978-1982, 1988-1992). Age-specific (10 to 24 years old) smoking initiation rates were calculated for males and females, and according to level of education (high education: university and secondary school; low education: primary and less than primary). RESULTS: Among males, there was a trend towards earlier age at start of smoking and higher initiation rates between 1958 and 1982, and a subsequent decline in initiation rates, more apparent in males with a higher level of education. Smoking initiation among females was rare until the 1960s, and from the period 1968-1972 onwards a converging pattern with that of males was observed. Women with a higher level of education started smoking before women with low education, but this pattern changed over the period 1978-1982, with higher initiation rates among less educated women during the last period studied. CONCLUSIONS: These results help to characterize the tobacco epidemic in Spain, now at the end of stage 3. The observations are in agreement with diffusion-of-innovations theory and the social and economic changes from the 1960s onwards in Spain.
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