Differences in spousal influence on smoking cessation by gender and education among Japanese couples
D. Takagi, N. Kondo, Misato Takada
Nov 19, 2014
Citations
27
Citations
Quality indicators
Journal
BMC Public Health
Full text
Semantic Scholar
Key Takeaway Key Takeaway: Spousal non-smoking is important for smoking cessation interventions in men, while for women, a couple's combined educational attainment may matter in interventions.
Abstract
BackgroundPrevious studies have reported that spousal non-smoking has a spillover effect on the partner’s cessation. However, discussion is lacking on the factors modifying that association. We examined whether the spillover effect of spousal non-smoking was associated with the couple’s educational attainment.MethodsWe used paired marital data from the Japanese Study on Stratification, Health, Income, and Neighborhood (J-SHINE), which targeted residents aged 25–50 years in four Japanese municipalities. We selected a spouse smoker at the time of marriage (target respondent), and set his/her smoking status change (continued or quit smoking after marriage) as an outcome, regressed on the counterpart’s smoking status (continued smoking or non-smoking) and combinations of each couple’s educational attainment as explanatory variables using log-binomial regression models (n =1001 targets; 708 men and 293 women).ResultsRegression results showed that a counterpart who previously quit smoking or was a never-smoker was associated with the target male spouse’s subsequent cessation. However, for women, the association between husband’s non-smoking and their own cessation was significant only for couples in which both spouses were highly educated.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that a spouse’s smoking status is important for smoking cessation interventions in men. For women, however, a couple’s combined educational attainment may matter in the interventions.