Exposure to new smoking environments and individual-level cigarette smoking behavior: Insights from exogenous assignment of military personnel.

ABSTRACT: Despite overall declines in cigarette smoking prevalence in the United States (U.S.) in the past several decades, smoking rates remain highly variable across geographic areas. Past work suggests that smoking norms and exposure to other smokers in one's social environment may correlate with smoking risk and cessation, but little is known about how exposure to other smokers in one's community is causally linked to smoking behavior - in part due to endogeneity and inability to randomly assign individuals to different 'smoking environments.' The goal of this study was to evaluate how exposure to localities with high population-level smoking prevalence affects individual-level cigarette smoking behaviors, including quitting. The study addresses key limitations in the literature by leveraging a

SUBMITTER: Dunbar MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8223508 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature