The lag effect of 24-year tobacco consumption on lung cancer mortality in Henan Province, China, 1992 to 2016

Tobacco exposure is the major risk factor for lung cancer. Previous studies have shown that there is a correlation between tobacco consumption and lung cancer mortality, but they do not show a specific trend. This study established the polynomial distributed lags (PDLs) model to explore the distributional lag effect between tobacco consumption and lung cancer mortality by using the lung cancer mortality rate of residents in Henan Province and the annual per capita tobacco consumption data from 1992 to 2016 and adopted dynamic simulation prediction method to predict lung cancer mortality for the next 20 years. We found that per capita tobacco consumption had a 10-year lag effect on lung cancer mortality. The harm of tobacco consumption did not show in the first 4 years, but after a lag of 4 years or more, the lung cancer mortality in men was higher than that in women, with a peak effect occurring 10 years later. The prediction showed that if per capita tobacco consumption was controlled, lung cancer mortality would show a steady decline trend after 10 years. These results suggested that tobacco consumption and lung cancer mortality were asynchronous, with a lag effect of tobacco use on the occurrence of lung cancer.