SMOKING CESSATION AND QUALITY-OF-LIFE OUTCOMES AMONG OLDER ADULTS IN THE CAMPBELLS SURVEY ON WELL-BEING

Most research regarding the health effects of smoking has focussed on mortality and on relatively young populations. Less is known about the consequences of smoking and the benefits of cessation among older adu lts. Improvements in quality of life are likely to represent more sali ent reasons to motivate older adults to stop smoking. Multivariate res ults from the Campbell's Survey on Well-Being indicate that long-term cessation among older adults yielded odds ratios comparable to never s mokers in eight of 13 quality of life outcomes. Conversely, current sm okers had elevated risks in 11 of 13 areas. Short-term benefits of smo king cessation were less clear in this subsample, and a number of poss ible explanations for this finding are explored.