Smoking Demographics

With the start of our smoking cessation program just around the corner (visit Lisa previous blog)I thought it would be interesting to go through some of the factors that researchers have linked to being a smoker.

The questions many studies have posed are 'why do people smoke' and 'what are the common links'. Within the field of health promotion there is a strong emphasis on the social determinants of health.

The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2008) commission on the social determinants of heath states “avoidable health inequities arise because of circumstances in which people grow, live, work and age and the systems put in place to deal with illness”. These circumstances can be influenced by government policy, economic and social conditions (WHO, 2008). Examples of social determinants of health suggested by Marmot and Wilkinson (1999) are socioeconomic status, stress, early life, social isolation, nature of work, unemployment, social support, addiction, availability of good food and transport system (Lin et al, 2007).

The NSW Cancer Council believes that smoking is a social justice issue. The justification for this statement relates to the statistical evidence that disadvantaged groups have much higher rates of smoking, the health and financial costs of smoking for these groups are enormous and the disadvantaged face real barriers to resisting or quitting smoking (NSW Cancer council, 2010). Again the prevalence rates among disadvantaged groups speaks volumes with low income single parents rates over 45%, indigenous smoking rates around 50%, those in prison having smoking rates of 70-80%, people with a mental illness have rates as high as 70-90% and people in drug treatment have rates above from 74% (NSW Cancer Council, 2010).

The current whole population prevalence for smoking in Victoria is 16.9%. Again the statisical evidence speaks volumes in relation to smoking being more prevalent in some demographics.

Socio economic status (SES) has been demonstrated to be a strong predictor of smoking status within Victoria (McCarthy et al, 2009). Those in the lowest SES areas (20.6%) were more likely to regularly smoke than both those living in mid SES areas (17.1%) and those living in the highest SES areas (11.5%) (McCarthy et al, 2009). Victorian data from 2009 also demonstrates a trend between education level and smoking status (McCarthy et al, 2009). Those with a year 12 or less education have a smoking prevalence of 21.6% compared to those with a year 12 and above education 13.1% (McCarthy et al, 2009).

So while we work with indivduals in smoking cessation programs to help
fight their addiction more needs to be done at the macro level of health promotion to stem the uptake and implement specific programs with the groups at most risk. It is acknowledged that programs targeted at the social determinants of health are actually working as tobacco control programs as well.

Jessica