The prevalence of any lifetime, past year, and past month mental illness was 36.9%, 18.1%, and 4.7%, respectively. Persons with incomes below the poverty line; those with less than a high school degree; those who were divorced, separated, or widowed; and those living in the Northeast and Midwest had the highest prevalence of lifetime and past year mental illness relative to other groups (see ).
| Table 1.Prevalence of DSM-IV Mental Disorders According to Demographics For Blacksa |
For the total sample, the prevalence of current smoking was 27.7% and lifetime smoking was 42.6%. The current smoking prevalence for respondents with no mental illness was 20.6% compared with 35.6% for those with a lifetime mental illness, 36.0% for those with a past year mental illness, and 45.4% for those with a past month mental illness. The lifetime smoking prevalence for respondents with no mental illness was 34.6% compared with 51.7% for those with a lifetime mental illness, 48.8% for those with a past year mental illness, and 57.9% for those with a past month mental illness.
summarizes the smoking prevalence and quit rates according to mental disorders in the lifetime and past year. Parallel analyses were not run for past month mental disorders given the small sample sizes. For all disorders assessed except lifetime dysthymia, meeting criteria for a mental disorder in one’s lifetime or past year was associated with higher current and lifetime smoking prevalence and lower quit rates relative to smokers with no mental illness. A dose–response relationship was found between the number of lifetime mental disorders and the prevalence of heavier and lighter smoking (see ).
| Table 2.Smoking Prevalence and Quit Rates According to Lifetime and Past Year DSM-IV Mental Disorders For Blacks (N = 3,411)a |
Current smokers with mental illness in the past year (weighted
n = 1,420,284) had a mean consumption of 9.6 CPD and consumed 23.9% of cigarettes smoked by Black smokers. For current smokers, there was a positive correlation between current CPD and CPD during peak consumption,
r = .42,
n = 931,
p < .001. To replicate the method of
Lasser et al. (2000), the formula also was calculated using unweighted frequencies and CPD during peak consumption, yielding an estimate that those with past year mental illness consumed 28.2% of cigarettes smoked by Blacks.
Logistic regression analyses found that lifetime, past year, and past month mental illness were all significantly associated with current smoking status after controlling for age, gender, poverty, education level, and marital status (). The covariates of gender, education, and marital status also were significant; age and poverty were not significant.
| Table 3.Logistic Regression Analyses Predicting Current Smoking From Mental Illness For Blacks, Adjusting For Demographics |
We ran a similar model to examine associations with quit status. For the full sample, former smokers reported being quit for an average of 13.6 years (SD = 0.68, range: <1 to 65 years). The majority of former smokers (91.7%) had quit for at least one year. Logistic regression analyses found that neither lifetime (odds ratio [OR] = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.67–1.20), past year (OR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.54–1.07), or past month (OR = 0.58, 95% CI = 0.29–1.13) mental illness were significantly associated with quit status after controlling for age, gender, poverty, education level, and marital status. Only older age was significantly associated (OR = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.04–1.06) with an increased odds of quitting. We repeated the models defining quitting as being abstinent for ≥1 year and found that past year (OR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.53–0.97) and past month mental illness (OR = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.29–0.98) were significantly associated with a lower odds of quitting, while lifetime mental illness was not associated with prolonged quit status (OR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.62–1.07).