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August 11, 1983 C Page 2. C 4. The vital statistics of the United States for the year 1973 indicate that in all the five-year age groups from age 30 to age 75, a female's risk of dying is about one half that of a male in the same age group. Yet during the same period of time in Erie County a nonsmoking woman aged 40-44 had twice the risk of dying as a nonsmoking male in the.same age group. Moreover the excess risk for nonsmoking females was 46% for ages 30=~_T4°s for ages.50-54, 15% for ages 65-69, 47% for ages 70-74 and 28% for ages 75-79. MAK:sr cc: Samuel D. Chilcote, Jr. Horace R. Kornegay

..• TI I TOB CCO INSrITUTE. ~ . ]875 1 STREET, NORTH'AEST MARVIN A..KASTENtiAUM. Ph.D. WAS7SINGPDN..DC 20006Directorof Statistics 2U27'4574800 • 800V424-9876. 202i457i85(] MEMORANDUM August 11, 1983 To: George E. Schafer. From: Marvin A. Kastenbaum Subj,ect: "The Life Expsctancy of Nonsmoking Men and Women" by G. H. Miller and D. R. Gerstein produce the adjusted probability function (Qx) in column 6." This statement is obviously in error. The figures in column 6 have been calculated correctly, but not in the manner described by the authors. 2. "For the purposes of this. report, only lifetime non- smokers--2,195 persons who had smoked less than 2-0 packs of cigarettes during their lifetime--were con- sidered for this analysis." 1. The authors "establish the age-specific mortality rate in column 4." Then they indicate that, "these rates were multiplied by the Chiang constants in column 5 to This definition of a nonsmoker differs from the tradi-'. tional Fublic Health Service definition. In 1955 a nonsmoker was a person "who smoked less than 10 packs of cigarettes in his lifetime." In 1966 a nonsmoker was a person who "never smoked more than 100 cigarettes (five packs•of cigarettes) in his entire life." 3. Of the 2,195 deaths considered in this analysis, 432 were nonsmoking males and 1763.were nonsmoking females. Thus mo.re than four times as many deceased nonsmoking females as nonsmoking males are in this study group. Yet the population figures andthe smoking rates in- dicate that there were only 2.5 times as many female nonsmokers as male nonsmokers in Erie County during the same period of time.•.,, _ Why did so many more nonsmoking women than nonsmoking men die in Erie County in 1972-19742