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Logo of bmcphBioMed Centralsearchsubmit a manuscriptregisterthis articleBMC Public Health
 
BMC Public Health. 2011; 11: 877.
Published online 2011 November 21. doi:  10.1186/1471-2458-11-877
PMCID: PMC3231819
Copyright ©2011 Cohen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
Individual and neighborhood-level socioeconomic characteristics in relation to smoking prevalence among black and white adults in the Southeastern United States: a cross-sectional study
Sarah S Cohen,corresponding author1 Jennifer S Sonderman,1 Michael T Mumma,1 Lisa B Signorello,1,2 and William J Blot1,2
1International Epidemiology Institute, 1455 Research Blvd, Suite 550, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
2Division of Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, 2525 West End Ave, Nashville, TN 37203, USA
corresponding authorCorresponding author.
Sarah S Cohen: sarah/at/iei.us; Jennifer S Sonderman: Jennifer/at/iei.us; Michael T Mumma: Mike/at/iei.us; Lisa B Signorello: Lisa.Signorello/at/vanderbilt.edu; William J Blot: william.j.blot/at/vanderbilt.edu
Received September 1, 2011; Accepted November 21, 2011.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background
Low individual-level socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher prevalence of cigarette smoking. Recent work has examined whether neighborhood-level SES may affect smoking behavior independently from individual-level measures. However, few comparisons of neighborhood-level effects on smoking by race and gender are available.
Methods
Cross-sectional data from adults age 40-79 enrolled in the Southern Community Cohort Study from 2002-2009 (19, 561 black males; 27, 412 black females; 6, 231 white males; 11, 756 white females) were used in Robust Poisson regression models to estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for current smoking in relation to individual-level SES characteristics obtained via interview and neighborhood-level SES characteristics represented by demographic measures from US Census block groups matched to participant home addresses.
Results
Several neighborhood-level SES characteristics were modestly associated with increased smoking after adjustment for individual-level factors including lower percentage of adults with a college education and lower percentage of owner-occupied households among blacks but not whites; lower percentage of households with interest, dividends, or net rental income among white males; and lower percentage of employed adults among black females.
Conclusions
Lower neighborhood-level SES is associated with increased smoking suggesting that cessation programs may benefit from targeting higher-risk neighborhoods as well as individuals.
Keywords: Cigarette smoking, Socioeconomic status, Race, Residence characteristics
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