EmanMahfouz1,3,
RehabAbdel Rahman1,2,
Ghada Radwan1,5;
Eman Al Tahlawy1,5,
Mostafa Mohamed1,2,
Fatma Abdel-Aziz1,4and
Ebenezer Israel1,6
Egyptian
Smoking Prevention Research Institute (ESPRI)1, Ain Shams
University Faculty of Medicine 2, Mania University School of
Medicine 3,
Egyptian
Ministry of Health and Population 4 , Cairo University Faculty of
Medicine 5 and University of Maryland 6.
Abstract
To characterize the
relationship between socioeconomic indicators and cigarette smoking. A
household smoking health survey was carried out in rural Egypt. Four
measures of socioeconomic status (SES) were used: four quartiles for
income and material wealth, five groups of educational attainment and
three occupational categories. Fagerstrom index was used to calculate
dependency.
Out of 4994 of
adult male smokers, 36% were current smokers and 3.7% were highly
dependent on nicotine. There is clear gradient in smoking behavior
across various dimensions of SES.
Current smokers were
significantly more likely to have low job status, income and literacy
and nicotine dependency (p < 0.01). Quit attempts are associated
with high income and education as well as with high working status
(p< 0.01). Smokers of high working status are more likely to
believe that smoking decreases life expectancy (p< 0.003), affects
fetuses (p< 0.000), more likely to be exposed to anti-smoking
messages (p < 0.04), less likely to have current chest problems
(p< 0.000), and are more knowledgeable about the dangers of passive
smoking (p <0.000). Material wealth in this study was found to be
irrelevant to the smoking behavior.
