Learning Objectives: Identify those traits that are likely to predict who fails to understand the relationship between smoking and lung cancer in a poor population
Abstract:
Problem/Objective:
Surveys indicate that most people are aware of the risks of smoking. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of smokers report that a smoker’s risk of contracting lung cancer is at or below that of a non-smoker. Past efforts to characterize smokers who hold this inaccurate belief (risk-unaware smokers) have suggested that there are not significant demographic predictors. We examined whether this general finding holds in a sample of smokers taken from a predominantly poor population, to further test if being risk-unaware is related to demographic characteristics.
Methods:
A subset of respondents from the Wisconsin Dependence Survey presented a convenience sample of individuals from inner city Milwaukee (n=192) to test our hypothesis. Pairwise comparisons were conducted to identify relevant variables for a logistic regression model, which also controlled for other demographic characteristics.
Results:
Pairwise comparisons found four variables to be statistically significant predictors of being risk-unaware: being African-American, having less than a college education, having a low level of tobacco dependence (measured by the Fagerstrom Test of Nicotine Dependence), and not having a smoking-related disease. When these four variables were placed in a logistic regression model that also controlled for income, gender and age, FTND was no longer statistically significant.
Conclusions:
Unlike a recent statewide survey, these results suggest that there may be identifiable groups of individuals who are more susceptible to being risk-unaware. Since studies have shown a connection between intent to quit and being risk-aware, these groups should be further identified and targeted for prevention and treatment efforts.
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