Study Looks at Discrimination's Impact on Smoking
Smoking, the leading preventable cause of mortality in the United States, continues to disproportionately impact lower income members of racial and ethnic minority groups. In a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, looked at how perceived discrimination influences smoking rates among these groups. "We found that regardless of race or ethnicity, the odds of current smoking were higher among individuals who perceived that they were treated differently because of their race, though racial and ethnic minority groups were more likely to report discrimination," he says. "In follow-up analyses considering specific types of discrimination, only worse treatment in the workplace was significantly associated with current smoking after accounting for other factors; individuals who reported worse treatment in the workplace were 42 percent more likely to smoke."