Communication inequalities, social determinants, and intermittent smoking in the 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey.

INTRODUCTION

Intermittent smokers account for a large proportion of all smokers, and this trend is increasing. Social and communication inequalities may account for disparities in intermittent smoking status.

METHODS

Data for this study came from 2,641 ever-smokers from a 2003 nationally representative cross-sectional survey. Independent variables of interest included race/ethnicity, sex, household income, education, health media attention, and cancer-related beliefs. The outcome of interest was smoking status categorized as daily smoker, intermittent smoker, or former smoker. Analyses used 2 sets of multivariable logistic regressions to investigate the associations of covariates with intermittent smokers compared with former smokers and with daily smokers.

RESULTS

People with high education and high income, Spanish-speaking Hispanics, and women were the most likely to be intermittent rather than daily smokers. Women and Spanish-speaking Hispanics were the most likely to be intermittent rather than former smokers. Attention to health media sources increased the likelihood that a person would be an intermittent smoker instead of a former or daily smoker. Believing that damage from smoking is avoidable and irreversible was associated with lower odds of being an intermittent smoker rather than a former smoker but did not differentiate intermittent smoking from daily smoking.

CONCLUSION

The results indicate that tailoring smoking-cessation campaigns toward intermittent smokers from specific demographic groups by using health media may improve the effect of these campaigns and reduce social health disparities.