the rate of death from lung cancer from the 1982–1988 period to the contemporary period (Fig. 1); these age groups represent birth cohorts from 1900 to 1929 (Fig. S1 in the Supplementary Appendix). Absolute lung-cancer mortality was higher for men than for women in all three periods, irrespective of smoking status. However, in the contemporary period, the point estimates for the relative risk of death from lung cancer among current smokers, as compared with those who had never smoked, were virtually identical for men and women: 24.97 (95% CI, 22.20 to 28.09) and 25.66 (95% CI, 23.17 to 28.40), respectively (Tables 2 and 3).
