Religious beliefs and Egyptian adolescent males' smoking habits

Religion can impact how an individual thinks and acts. In the Muslim faith, the use of certain substances is either discouraged or prohibited through fatwas, or religious decrees. These religious decrees can have a strong influence on the types of behavior that a follower engages in. Because 90% of the Egyptian population ascribes to the teachings of Islam these fatwas may impact the Egyptian population health. Egypt also has a high smoking rate among the adult male population, despite having current fatwas that oppose smoking (Radwan, Israel, El-Setouhy, Abdel-Aziz, Mikhail & Mohamed, 2003). This study looked at male adolescent smokers' adherence to religious norms and its effect on smoking. Adolescent male data (n=1,937) obtained from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey were utilized (Egypt, 2005). Current smoking (past 30 days), smoking susceptibility (composite of openness to accepting a cigarette and intention to start smoking in the next year), and smoker's perceived religious norms were analyzed. A weighted logistic regression analysis was conducted (Stata 10.0). The results show that adherence to religious norms was significantly negatively associated with current youth smoking rates (OR= 0.561, p = 0.011), but not with susceptibility to smoking (OR= 0.827, p = 0.248). The results suggest that smoking initiation may influence perception of religious norms, thus a focus on religious fatwas may not be effective in reducing smoking initiation rates among Egyptian male youths. Future studies should examine other social factors that could contribute to youths' smoking initiation.