Medical Absenteeism Among Cigarette, and Cigar and Pipe Smokers

A retrospective study was made of medical absenteeism among 226 male, hourly paid employees of a manufacturing company for the nine-year period 1956 through 1964. Subjects were aged 55 to 59 in 1965 and were examined and interviewed regarding smoking habits at that time. There were significant associations of high absenteeism with cigarette smoking and equally or more significant associations of low absenteeism with cigar or pipe smoking. Considerable overlapping of individual absentee rates among groups divided by smoking habits suggested caution in drawing causal conclusions about these associations. Results might fit the hypothesis that adoption of the habit of cigar or pipe smoking by middle age occurred among men with constitutional and absentee behavioral characteristics tending to distinguish them from men with a lifelong cigarette smoking habit.