Area-Level Characteristics and Smoking in Women

• DOI: 10.2105/ajph.91.11.1847
• Publication Date: 2008-11-29T13:33:29Z
• Authors: Marilyn Tseng; Karin Yeatts; Robert Millikan; Beth Newman
• Keywords: Adult; 330; Health Behavior; Smoking; 610; Censuses; Middle Aged; Kinesiology; White People; 3. Good health; Black or African American; 03 medical and health sciences; Crowding; Logistic Models; 0302 clinical medicine; Socioeconomic Factors; Residence Characteristics; Poverty Areas; North Carolina; Prevalence; Humans; Women's Health; Female; Crime; Stress, Psychological

Objectives. This study examined whether area-level characteristics are associated with individual smoking behavior among women. Methods. Analyses included 648 women enrolled as control patients in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study (1993–1996). Smoking and covariate information was obtained from interviews. Area-level census block-group education level, poverty, unemployment, car–home ownership, crowding, and, for 431 women, city-level crime rates. Results. In multivariate logistic regression models, no area were clearly a history of smoking. Among those who had ever smoked, continued living low-education areas (odds ratio [OR] = 1.7, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.0, 2.9), highunemployment (OR CI 2.8), high-crime 1.6, 0.8, 3.2). Conclusions. The present findings consistent growing literature suggesting that social economic disadvantage influences behavior.