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This study investigates the evolution of educational disparities in smoking uptake across cohorts for men and women in three countries. Nationally representative surveys of adults in France, Germany and the United States in 2009-2010 include retrospective measures of age of uptake that are compared for three cohorts (born 1946-1960, 1961-1975, and 1976-1992). Discrete logistic regressions and a relative measure of education are used to model smoking histories until age 34. The following patterns are found: a strengthening of educational disparities in the timing of uptake from older to younger cohorts; an earlier occurrence of the strengthening for men than women and for the United States than France or Germany; a faster pace of the epidemic in France than in the United States, and; a divide between the highest level of education and the others in the United States, as opposed to a gradient across categories in France. Those differences in smoking disparities across cohorts, genders and countries help identify the national and temporal circumstances that shape the size and direction of the relationship between education and health and the need for policies that target educational disparities., (Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

This study examines attitudes to smoking among adolescents. Data for the study is derived from a large quantitative French cross-sectional survey of school students. Attitudes toward smoking were found to be associated with regularity and quantity of consumption, and the type of school attended. These associations are explained according to Becker's concept of a 'moral career', for attitudes differ among occasional, regular and heavy smokers. The association with school type indicates advanced formal schooling enables students to offer sophisticated rationalisations for smoking, combining an acknowledgement of health-related risks of smoking, emphasis on personal benefits derived from smoking, and claims that smoking is a private matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An elevated risk of suicide among individuals with cardiovascular diseases has previously been reported, although inconsistently. Petersen et al. (1) recently confirmed the association between heart diseases and suicide. Among the strengths of the Petersen et al. study [1] is the cohort's considerable size and complete population coverage countrywide and the ability to address a number or potential confounders notably psychiatric disorders. Depression seems to be related to a poor prognosis among patients with acute coronary syndrome [2]. In addition, depression - along with other psychiatric disorders - is associated with increased suicide mortality [3]. Showing that the association between heart diseases and suicide persists after adjustment for psychiatric disorders [1] is thus an important contribution to the understanding of the relationship between heart diseases and suicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]