Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #108425

Erik M. Augustson, PhD, MPH¹, Kay L. Wanke, PhD², Andrew W. Bergen, PhD³, Elaine Lanza, PhD⁴, and Neil E. Caporaso, MD³. (1) Tobacco Control Research Branch, SAIC/National Cancer Institute, Executive Plaza North, Room 4039B, 6130 Executive Boulevard, MSC 7337, Bethesda, MD 20852-7337, (301) 435-7610, augustse@mail.nih.gov, (2) Tobacco Control Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, Executive Plaza South, Room 7115, 6120 Executive Boulevard, MSC 7195, Bethesda, MD 20892-7195, (3) DCEG, National Cancer Institute, Executive Plaza South- Room 7115, 6120 Executive BLVD, MSC 7195, Bethesda, MD 20892-7195, (4) CCR, National Cancer Institute, Room 705, 6116 Executive Blvd, MSC 8314, Bethesda, MD 20892-8314

Sustaining effective health behavior change is challenging and theoretically promising interventions often fail to provide demonstrable benefit. In part, this may be due to failure to consider the context in which health decisions take place. For example, although health behaviors often cluster, little research has focused on considering more than one behavior at a time. Given the mounting social restrictions and sanctions on smoking, we hypothesize that continued smoking may be a marker for a broader difficulty in changing any behavior. To assess this and the general issue of how health practices in the aggregate may be resistant to intervention, we need to increase our understanding of the relationships among health behaviors. We present data from a variety of sources to investigate the relationship between smoking and two other key health behaviors: diet and activity. The data presented are drawn from a U.S. nationally-representative sample, a prospective cohort study of Finnish, male smokers, and a large, dietary intervention trial. Each of these datasets provides unique insights into the relationship between these health behaviors, while supporting the contention that smoking is a key marker for unhealthy lifestyles. These findings also highlight the large number of unanswered questions related to clustering of health behaviors and the need for improved interventions that can address multiple behaviors. These results compellingly argue that researchers outside of the tobacco field should include smoking as a variable of interest in their studies, even if smoking is not considered a primary risk factor for the outcome studied.

Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will be able to describe why tobacco use may be a key marker for broader problems with adherence to health behavior change interventions. Attendees will be able identify how diet/activity are associated with various stages of tobacco use. Attendees will be able to describe the association of tobacco use and diet/activity within a range of populations.

Keywords: Health Risks, Tobacco

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.