Smoke-Free Policies Among Asian-American Women: Comparisons by Education Status
Background
California has significantly decreased racial/ethnic and educational disparities in smoke-free home and indoor work policies. California's ethnic-specific surveys present an opportunity to disaggregate data and examine the impact of California's smoke-free social norm campaign for Asian-American women.
Methods
The California Tobacco Use Surveys for Chinese Americans and Korean Americans were conducted in 2003 and analyzed in 2008 to compare women with lower (≤ high school graduate) or higher education status for smoke-free policy adoption and enforcement.
Results
Lower-educated and higher-educated women had similar proportions of smoke-free policies at home (58%) or indoor work (90%). However, lower-educated women were more likely than higher-educated women to report anyone ever smoking at home (OR=1.62, 95% CI=1.06, 2.48, p=0.03) and exposure during the past 2 weeks at an indoor workplace (OR=2.43, 95% CI= 1.30, 4.55, p=0.005), even after controlling for ethnicity, smoke-free policy, knowledge about the health consequences of secondhand smoke exposure, and acculturation. There was no interaction between education and knowledge about secondhand smoke health harms.
Conclusions
The intended consequences of California's tobacco-control efforts have resulted in similar rates of smoke-free policies at home and in indoor work environments among Asian-American women across educational levels. However, an unintended consequence of this success is a disparity in enforcement by educational status, with lower-educated Asian-American women reporting greater smoke exposure despite similar rates of knowledge about the health consequences of secondhand smoke exposure. Besides establishing policies, lower-educated Asian-American women may need to be empowered to assert and enforce their right to smoke-free environments.
aDepartment of Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis, California
bTobacco Control Program, California Department of Public Health, Sacramento, California
cDepartment of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
dDepartment of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Elisa K. Tong, MD, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis Medical Center, 4150 V Street, Suite 2400, Sacramento CA 95817
ABSTRACT