Socioeconomic disadvantage, parenting responsibility, and women's smoking in the United States.
OBJECTIVE
We carried out analyses of smoking in relation to poverty and child care responsibility among women aged 18-54 years residing in the United States.


METHODS
With data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we assessed the interaction effects of poverty and living with young children on maternal smoking behavior among 61,700 women aged 18-54 years in 4 different racial/ethnic groups.


RESULTS
For non-White racial/ethnic groups, the prevalence of smoking among women with small children in the household was lower than that among women without small children. However, White women were more likely to smoke if they were poor and living with small children (odds ratio=1.14, 95% confidence interval=1.03, 1.26).


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that child care responsibility confers an increased risk of smoking among low-income White women.
Jun
Hee-Jin
HJ
Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Mediccal School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. nhhjj@channing.harvard.edu
Subramanian
S V
SV
Gortmaker
Steven
S
Kawachi
Ichiro
I
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008875:Middle Aged; D016487:Parenting / Q000208:ethnology; D011203:Poverty; D015995:Prevalence; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology