Misclassification of Smoking Habits as a Source of Bias in the Study of Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer

The relationship of environmental tobacco smoke to lung cancer risk in lifelong non-smokers is commonly studied using marriage to a smoker as the index of exposure. As smokers tend to marry smokers, relative risk estimates will be biased if some current or former smokers are misclassified as lifelong non-smokers. This paper shows how various factors affect the magnitude of the bias and describes a method for obtaining misclassification-adjusted relative risk estimates. Application of the method to U.S. and Asian data for women suggests misclassification is an important determinant of the slight excess risk observed in non-smokers married to smokers. Reasons why our conclusions differ from those of others are discussed, as are other difficulties in interpreting the association between spousal smoking and lung cancer risk.