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Smoking tends to co-occur in spousal pairs, which might hinder each partner's ability to quit. These investigators reanalyzed smoking data from a population-based, longitudinal cohort study on atherosclerosis risk. Participants were 4494 couples (age range, 45–64) recruited from four U.S. communities, who participated in at least the first visit of the four-wave study (conducted every 3 years in 1986–1998) and who self-reported their smoking status.
The percentage of couples in which both husband and wife were former smokers increased over time (visit 1, 40%; visit 4, 64%); the percentage of couples where both were current smokers plummeted (visit 1, 26%; visit 4, 9%). Further analyses adjusted for demographics, alcohol use, hypertension, bo…