Rates of common diseases and risk factors Smoking Amongst UTOPIAN patients who have provided doctors with their smoking status, cigarette smoking appears to be most common among men and women combined age 50–64 years: 24 percent of men and 19 percent of women were smokers. Overall, 19 percent of patients whose smoking status was recorded in their electronic medical record smoke, which is significantly higher than provincial smoking rates, estimated to be around 11 percent (Reid et al., 2017). If we assume, however, that all the patients without their smoking status recorded are non-smokers, the smoking rates among UTOPIAN patients would be 13 percent, closer to the 11 percent estimated provincial smoking rates (Reid et al, 2017).
TABLE 1: PATIENTS THAT ‘CURRENTLY’ SMOKE OVERALL AND BY AGE AND SEX* AGE GROUP
NUMBER
PERCENTAGE
12–18 years
236
12
19–34 years
5,131
25
35–49 years
6,694
25
50–64 years
7,514
24
65 years
3,802
16
All ages
23,377
22
12–18 years
246
11
19–34 years
4,577
16
35–49 years
5,971
17
50–64 years
7,078
19
65 years
3,990
13
All ages
21,862
16
12–18 years
482
12
19–34 years
9,708
20
35–49 years
12,665
20
50–64 years
14,592
21
65 years
7,792
14
All ages
45,239
19
MALE
FEMALE
ALL PATIENTS
26 | Chapter 5
*Based on 240,517/343,398=70 percent age 12 years and over of patients that smoke had their smoking status recorded in their electronic medical record. When looking at the table it is important to keep in mind that smoking status is missing for almost 30 percent of patients. Specifically, data were missing for: 85 percent of patients ages 12 to 18 years, 36 percent of patients ages 19 to 34, 23 percent of patients ages 35 to 49, 19 percent of patients ages 50 to 64, and 22 percent of patients over the age of 65.