Jennifer Stuber, PhD¹, Shannon Blaney, MPH², Crystal Fuller, PhD², and Sandro Galea, MD, MPH². (1) The New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029, 2124163527, jstuber@nyam.org, (2) Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies, New York Academy of Medicine, 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029

We assessed the association between neighborhood characteristics, current cigarette smoking and rate of smoking in New York City neighborhoods.

Data are based on RDD survey to 1000 residents in the South Bronx, East Harlem, Central Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Zip codes were considered good proxies for neighborhoods. We used multi-level models to assess the relation between neighborhood characteristics, current smoking (smoked some days or every day in the past 12 months and smoked at least one cigarette in the past month) and rate of smoking (the mean number of cigarettes smoked in the past month among current smokers) controlling for gender, race and ethnicity, education, household income, marital status, and the number of years that respondents’ lived in the United States and in their neighborhood.

Overall, 24.3% of respondents were current smokers and among current smokers the mean number of cigarettes smoked in the past month was 73.9. In multi-level models, concentrated disadvantage (OR=1.16, 95% CI= (1.08, 1.24)) and low levels of social control (OR=1.09, 95% CI= (1.04, 1.14)) were associated with current smoking. By contrast, respondents who lived in zip codes characterized by higher levels of residential stability (OR=0.67, 95% CI= (0.60, 0.75)) and higher levels of racial and ethnic heterogeneity (OR=0.07, 95% CI=0.03, 1.14)) were less likely to smoke. Respondents living in zip codes with lower levels of social control smoked more cigarettes on average (p<0.05).

Neighborhood characteristics are a predictor of current smoking and the rate of smoking in individuals, which has implications for smoking cessation.

Learning Objectives:

• To inform smoking cessation efforts regarding contextual determinants of tobacco use in particular, the role of neighborhood deprivation and social control.

Keywords: Tobacco, Poverty

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.