Association between leukocyte telomere shortening and exposure to traffic pollution: a cross-sectional study on traffic officers and indoor office workers

Table 1 General characteristics of the study subjects

	Referents	Traffic officers	p-value^a
	(n = 57)	(n = 77)
Age, n (%)
<30 years	16 (28%)	36 (47%)
30-40 years	19 (33%)	31 (40%)
>40 years	22 (39%)	10 (13%)	0.002
Gender, n (%)
Male	38 (67%)	47 (61%)
Female	19 (33%)	30 (39%)	0.58
Cigarette smoking, n (%)
Never	26 (46%)	40 (52%)
Ever	31 (54%)	37 (48%)	0.49
Cigarettes/day, n (%)^b
1-10 cigarettes/day	9 (40%)	5 (18%)
11-20 cigarettes/day	7 (30%)	16 (57%)
>20 cigarettes/day	7 (30%)	7 (25%)	0.15
Pack-years of smoking, n (%)
0 pack-years	26 (45%)	40 (52%)
0.1-10 pack-years	14 (25%)	22 (28%)
>10 pack-years	17 (30%)	15 (20%)	0.39
Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, n (%)^c
No	14 (54%)	24 (60%)
Yes	12 (46%)	16 (40%)	0.30
Alcohol consumption, n (%)^d
Occasional/never	24 (44%)	40 (56%)
Every week	14 (26%)	18 (26%)
Every day	16 (30%)	13 (18%)	0.27

^aFisher exact test for differences across categories
^bData for current smokers are shown
^cData for never smokers are shown
^dSubject count not add up to the total number of participants due to missing values

ISSN: 1476-069X