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

Abstract #101720

Mohammad Siahpush, PhD¹, Ron Borland, PhD², Zahid Ansari, PhD³, and Adrian Serraglio³. (1) Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, The Cancer Council Victoria, 100 Drummond street, Carlton, Victoria, 3053, Australia, +61 (0)3 9635 5426, mohammad.siahpush@cancervic.org.au, (2) VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control, The Cancer Council Victoria, 100 Drummond Street, Carlton, Victoria, 3053, Australia, (3) Department of Human Services, Rural and Regional Health and Aged Care Services, GPO Box 1670N, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia

Methods: Data are based on a 2004 telephone survey of 2800 Melbourne (Australia) residents aged 18 years and over. Results: Preliminary analysis has shown that, after adjusting for sociodemographic variables, lower levels of neighbourhood social participation, trust, safety and subjective social standing were strongly associated with being a smoker. Discussion: The results suggest that promoting environments that are safe and conducive to social participation will result in a reduction of smoking prevalence and that psychosocial stress associated with perceived low social status is a risk factor for smoking over and above objective material disadvantage.

Learning Objectives:

• To examine the association of neighbourhood social capital (social participation, trust, safety and norms of reciprocity) and subjective social standing with smoking status.

Keywords: Social Inequalities, Smoking

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.