Contrasting male and female trends in tobacco-attributed mortality in China: evidence from successive nationwide prospective cohort studies

Chinese men now smoke more than a third of the world's cigarettes, following a large increase in urban then rural usage. Conversely, Chinese women now smoke far less than in previous generations. We assess the oppositely changing effects of tobacco on male and female mortality.Two nationwide prospective studies 15 years apart recruited 220,000 men in about 1991 at ages 40-79 years (first study) and 210,000 men and 300,000 women in about 2006 at...