The British Doctors Study, which began in 1951, was the world's first large prospective study of the effects of smoking to establish a convincing link between tobacco smoking and cause-specific mortality. Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill sent a smoking-habits questionnaire to all registered British doctors that October, following up a 1950 case-control study in which they had found that lung cancer risk rose in proportion to the amount smoked. In 1954 the doctors' cohort data confirmed that finding, establishing cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer and becoming one of the most influential studies in the history of epidemiology.
Facts
Milestone Year Milestone DateDoll and Hill's preliminary report was published in the British Medical Journal on 26 June 1954; the entity's existing milestone-year (1954) is unchanged. Classification
Type/ClassificationDiscovery or Breakthrough 1 FAQs
How many doctors took part in the British Doctors Study, and how long did it run?
About 40,701 of nearly all registered British doctors responded to the original 1951 questionnaire, and the study followed 34,439 male physicians for fifty years, through 2001.
Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill sent a smoking-habits questionnaire to nearly all registered British doctors in October 1951, and about two thirds of them, 40,701 doctors, responded. The study then tracked the health of 34,439 male British physicians, with further follow-up questionnaires in 1957, 1966, 1971, 1978, 1991 and 2001, running for fifty years in total.
What did the British Doctors Study establish?
Its 1956 results proved smoking raises lung cancer risk, and decades of continued follow-up established smoking as a cause of cause-specific mortality broadly.
Its first results, published in 1956, provided convincing statistical evidence that tobacco smoking increases the risk of lung cancer, confirming a 1950 case-control finding by the same two researchers that lung cancer risk rose in proportion to the amount smoked. Continued decades of follow-up went on to establish cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer and other cause-specific mortality, and the study is remembered as one of the most influential in the history of epidemiology for showing that a large prospective cohort followed over decades could establish causation, not just association.
Connections
Credited To
Austin Bradford Hill co-designed and co-led the British Doctors Study (1951 onward) with Richard Doll, establishing the smoking-lung cancer link.
Source Oxford CTSU: British Doctors Study
Richard Doll co-designed and co-led the British Doctors Study (1951 onward) with Austin Bradford Hill, establishing the smoking-lung cancer link.
Source Oxford CTSU: British Doctors Study
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Sources
1. Oxford CTSU: British Doctors Study
Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, University of OxfordStudy overview
In October 1951, Sir Richard Doll and Sir Austin Bradford Hill sent a questionnaire on smoking habits to all registered British doctors.
Program classification, entity description sentence
The British Doctors Study, which began in 1951, was the world's first large prospective study of the effects of smoking to establish a convincing link between tobacco smoking and cause-specific mortality.
View the Source 2. Wikipedia: Richard Doll
WikipediaWikipedia, British Doctors Study sectionQuote, Wikipedia, British Doctors Study section
Four years later, in 1954, the British doctors study, a study of some 40,000 doctors over 20 years, confirmed the suggestion, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related.
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