Ms. Zises Green is a chairwoman of the New York City Opera; the event was a pre-benefit dinner for the benefit dinner that takes place on Tuesday.
There was a competing benefit that evening for the NewYork-Presbyterian Phyllis and David Komansky Center for Children's Health, but that didn't stop other attendees like Blair Husain and Kamie Lightburn from doing some pre-benefit shopping.
As shown in Table 1, there were significant differences in the rate of current smoking (38.3% pre-benefit vs. 28.8% post-benefit) and recent quit success (6.6% pre-benefit vs. 19.1% post-benefit) using the demographically adjusted data.
Given the above result, comparisons also were made for smoking behavior between the pre-benefit period and post-benefit period using the demographically adjusted rates.
For all tests of proportional differences, the sample population used in the pre-benefit period included only MassHealth subscribers despite an increase in MassHealth enrollment post-benefit.
As a result, including uninsured adults in the pre-benefit population would likely overestimate the impact of the uninsured within the total MassHealth population.
This decision was made because a shorter time period would have reduced the likelihood of finding multiple joinpoints in the pre-benefit period.
To partially account for these demographic changes resulting from enrollment increases, prevalence estimates were computed using a weighting scheme that forced the demographic characteristics of the post-benefit period to match those in the pre-benefit period.
The crude smoking rate decreased from 38.3% 95%% C.I. 33.6% 42.9%) in the pre-benefit period compared to 28.3% 95%% C.I.: 24.0%–32.7%) in the post-benefit period, representing a decline of 26 percent.
Demographically-adjusted rates were calculated in such a way that the demographic characteristics of the post-benefit period (July 1 , 2006 December 31 , 2008) were forced to match those in a specified pre-benefit period (January 1 , 2003 June 20066).
For a full breakdown of the demographics for the pre-benefit period compared to the post-benefit period, see Table 2. Joinpoint trend analyses were computed for smoking prevalence between 1999 and 2008.
