Does the neighborhood where you live play a role in whether you become a smoker?
According to a new study, certain neighborhood traits might in fact have some influence.
The study in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health looked at factors that affect smoking habits among Asian-Americans living in California. The researchers report that tobacco use is becoming a growing public health problem in the Asian community.
While local socioeconomic status did not affect smoking behavior, other community traits did. Men who thought their neighborhoods were more cohesive were less likely to smoke. For women, living in an Asian neighborhood enclave - at least 50 percent Asian - made them less likely to smoke.
Lead author Namratha Kandula, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University, and colleagues evaluated 3,875 Asian adults who participated in the 2003 California Health Interview Survey, a telephone survey of randomly selected households.
Asian-Americans included people of Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and South Asian origin. Of these men, 22 percent were smokers, while 6 percent of Asian women smoked. This compares with the 19 percent of men and 16 percent women among whites who participated in the same CHIS.