ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2018
Investigating causality in associations between education and smoking: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study.
Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 70 citations in OpenAlex.
- Using Mendelian randomization analysis to better understand the relationship between mental health and substance use: a systematic review.Psychological medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Genetically predicted education attainment in relation to somatic and mental health.Scientific reports · 2021Pooled it
- Educational attainment and diabetes risk: triangulation evidence from UK Biobank prospective cohort, NHANES 2011-2018, and cross-trait genomics analyses.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Bayesian causal graphical model for joint Mendelian randomization analysis of multiple exposures and outcomes.American journal of human genetics · 2025Article
- Smoking and asthma mediate the protective effect of educational attainment on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk: a mediation Mendelian randomization analysis.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- The role of lifestyle factors in the association between education and self-reported fibromyalgia: a mediation analysis.BMC women's health · 2024Article
- Identification of potential mediators of the relationship between body mass index and colorectal cancer: a Mendelian randomization analysis.International journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Genetic prediction of modifiable lifestyle factors for erectile dysfunction.Sexual medicine · 2024Article
- Exploring the effect of lifestyle behaviors and socioeconomic status on atrial fibrillation: the mediating role of 91 inflammatory cytokines.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2024Article
- Education and cardiovascular diseases: a Mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2024Article
- Black Americans' Diminished Return of Educational Attainment on Tobacco Use in Baltimore City.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2023Article
- Educational attainment, health outcomes and mortality: a within-sibship Mendelian randomization study.International journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- Associations between health behaviours, fertility and reproductive outcomes: triangulation of evidence in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).BMC medicine · 2023Article
- Association of educational attainment with esophageal cancer, Barrett's esophagus, and gastroesophageal reflux disease, and the mediating role of modifiable risk factors: A Mendelian randomization study.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Smoking prevalence among Asian Americans: Associations with education, acculturation, and gender.Preventive medicine reports · 2022Article
- Association Between Brain Structure and Alcohol Use Behaviors in Adults: A Mendelian Randomization and Multiomics Study.JAMA psychiatry · 2022Article
- Smoking remains associated with education after controlling for social background and genetic factors in a study of 18 twin cohorts.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Interpreting Mendelian-randomization estimates of the effects of categorical exposures such as disease status and educational attainment.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Does smoking cause lower educational attainment and general cognitive ability? Triangulation of causal evidence using multiple study designs.Psychological medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Background: Lower educational attainment is associated with increased rates of smoking, but ascertaining causality is challenging. We used two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses of summary statistics to examine whether educational attainment is causally related to smoking. Methods and Findings: We used summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of educational attainment and a range of smoking phenotypes (smoking initiation, cigarettes per day, cotinine levels and smoking cessation). Of 74 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that predict educational attainment, 57 (or their highly correlated proxies) were present in the smoking initiation, cigarettes per day and smoking cessation GWAS, and 72 in the cotinine GWAS. Various complementary MR techniques (inverse variance weighted regression, MR Egger, weighted median regression) were used to test the robustness of our results. We found broadly consistent evidence across these techniques that higher educational attainment leads to reduced likelihood of smoking initiation, reduced heaviness of smoking among smokers (as measured via self-report [e.g. inverse variance weighted beta -2.25, 95% confidence interval (CI) -3.81, -0.70, P = 0.005] and cotinine levels [e.g. inverse variance weighted beta -0.34, 95% CI -0.67, -0.01, P = 0.057]), and greater likelihood of smoking cessation among smokers (inverse variance weighted beta 0.65, 95% CI 0.35, 0.95, P = 5.54 × 10-5). Less consistent across the different techniques were associations between educational attainment and smoking initiation. Conclusions: Our findings indicate a causal association between low educational attainment and increased risk of smoking, and may explain the observational associations between educational attainment and adverse health outcomes such as risk of coronary heart disease.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.