Does the pattern of educational inequalities in smoking in Western Europe depend on the choice of survey?

Margarete C. Kulik 1*, Terje A. Eikemo 1, Enrique Regidor 2 , Gwenn Menvielle 3,4 , Johan P. Mackenbach 1 for the Euro-GBD-SE Consortium

1Department of Public Health, ErasmusMedicalCenter, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2 Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

3 INSERM, UMR_S 1136, Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Social Epidemiology, F-75013, Paris, France

4 Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR_S 1136, Pierre Louis Institute of Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Social Epidemiology, F-75013, Paris, France

*corresponding author: email: ; phone: +31-10-7043730;

fax: +31-10-7038474

ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL TABLE:

Table 3: Harmonized categories of smoking status and initial country-specific smoking questions asked in the National Interview Health Surveys (NHIS)

1 = current regular smoker

2 = current occasional smoker

3 = former smoker

4 = never smoker

Country / Categories in harmonized files / Categories based on the following questions
Finland / 1, 2, 3, 4 / Have you ever smoked? Have you ever smoked regularly/daily? Have you ever smoked at least 100 times?
Sweden / 1, 3, 4 / Do you smoke daily? Have you previously smoked daily for any period of your life?
Denmark / 1, 2, 3, 4 / Do you smoke? If no, have you been a smoker?
England / 1, 3, 4 / Have you ever smoked a cigarette, a cigar or a pipe? Do you smoke cigarettes at all nowadays?
the Netherlands / 1, 2, 3, 4 / Do you smoke? Do you smoke every day? Did you ever smoke?
Belgium / 1, 2, 3, 4 / Do you smoke? (every day / now or then) Did you ever smoke?
Germany / 1, 3, 4 / Have you smoked in the past or do you smoke at present?
Spain / 1, 2, 3, 4 / Do you smoke?
Italy / 1, 3, 4 / Do you smoke? Yes/ I did / No
Portugal / 1, 2, 3, 4 / Did you smoke in the last two weeks? How long ago did you stop smoking?

Source: (Eurothine 2007)