Racial/ethnic minority females smoke more cigarettes after social interaction with others who smoke

Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of social interaction with others who smoke on daily cigarette use among diverse females via ecological momentary assessment methods. Ninety-eight premenopausal females (29.6% White, 70.4% racial/ethnic minority) who smoke daily reported their social interactions and cigarette use over 35-days. Greater than usual levels of social interaction with others who smoke was associated with increased cigarette use that day among racial/ethnic minority females. Future smoking cessation interventions targeting racial/ethnic minority females should consider the impact of social environments on smoking behaviors, such as the frequency of peer interactions with others who smoke.

Keywords:

• Females who smoke
• smoking
• racial/ethnic minorities
• social interaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [CXW], upon reasonable request.

Table 1. Participant characteristics by racial/ethnic group.

Table 2. Models of race/ethnicity and social interaction with people who smoke on daily smoking behavior.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by funds from NIDA grant K01-DA040043. Data from the parent study has been used in two prior publications (Pang et al., 2020 & Pang et al., 2022).