Transition to retirement impact on smoking habit: results from a longitudinal analysis within the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) project

Abstract

Background In an ageing society, retirement impacts on behavioural risk factors and health outcomes should be carefully assessed. Scant evidence exists from longitudinal studies on the short- and long-term consequences of the transition to retirement on smoking habit. Methods We conducted a longitudinal study based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data from 27 European countries plus Israel collected in 2004–2020. To estimate relative risks (RR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) for smoking status and intensity at seven time periods before and after retirement, we fitted adjusted generalised estimating equation (GEE) models for repeated measures. Results We selected a cohort of 8998 individuals employed at baseline and retired at follow-up (median follow-up time: 9 years; maximum: 16 years). As compared to the year of retirement, the RR of smoking was 1.59 (95% CI 1.44–1.76) at 10 years or more before retirement, 1.35 (95% CI 1.25–1.46) from 5 to 9 years before retirement, and 1.18 (95% CI 1.10–1.27) from 1 to 4 years before retirement. Smoking steadily decreased after retirement, being 0.94 (95% CI 0.87–1.01) from 1 to 4 years after retirement, 0.76 (95% CI 0.69–0.84) from 5 to 9 years, and 0.58 (95% CI 0.46–0.74) 10 years or more after retirement. In smokers, the estimated number of cigarettes smoked/day decreased from about 27 cigarettes/day at 10 years or more before retirement to 9 cigarettes/day at 10 years or more after retirement (p trend < 0.001). Conclusion Longitudinal data suggest that lifestyles might favourably change with retirement. Further studies are needed to direct healthy ageing promotion policies better.

Transition to retirement impact on risk of depression and suicidality: results from a longitudinal analysis of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

“…Given that the study cohort was selected following rigorous but subjective criteria, as done in previous studies which analysed the same population (Bertuccio et al. , 2023), the representativeness of the cohort and the generalizability of our results might be limited.…”

“…As done before (Bertuccio et al. , 2023), through a record-linkage procedure, we pooled individual-level data of SHARE waves 1 to 8, covering the period from 2004 to 2020. We combined three publicly available datasets for each wave, including data on sociodemographic traits (module DN), behavioural aspects (module BR) and job and pension variables (module EP).…”

The impact of retirement on blood pressure: evidence from a nationwide survey in China

“…Retirement is generally defined as withdrawing from a job or occupation and no longer actively seeking employment, i.e., permanently leaving the labor market. As a crucial transition in life, retirement may affect health through several pathways, such as changing health behaviors [ 1 , 2 ] and mental stress [ 3 ]. With increasing life expectancy and an aging population, clarifying the association between retirement and health could be helpful to optimize retirement policies and medical resources at the national level.…”