The association of lone-motherhood with smoking cessation and relapse: prospective results from an Australian national study

Partnering and parenting transitions associate with changing smoking status: a cohort study in young Australians

OBJECTIVES

To examine the effects of partnering and parenting transitions on smoking continuity in young adults.

METHODS

A prospective cohort study was conducted involving 1084 young smokers and former smokers who completed questionnaires at baseline (2004-2006, aged 26-36 years) and 5 years later.

RESULTS

233/570 (40.9%) smokers quit and 58/514 (11.3%) former smokers resumed smoking during follow-up. For partnering transitions, compared with remaining not partnered, the likelihood of quitting was higher among men who became (RR 2.84 95% CI 1.62, 4.98) or stayed (RR 2.12, 95% CI 1.18, 3.80) partnered and women who became partnered (RR 1.50, 95% CI 1.03, 2.18). People who became (RR 0.14, 95% CI 0.03, 0.58) or stayed (RR 0.51, 95% CI 0.27, 0.95) partnered had a lower risk of resuming smoking than their continuously not partnered peers. For parenting transitions, having a first child born increased women's probability of quitting smoking relative to remaining childless (RR 1.74, 95% CI 1.30, 2.33), while having additional children did not.

CONCLUSIONS

The benefits of partnering were greater for men than women and transition into parenthood was of greater benefit to women.

Can tobacco control be transformative? Reducing gender inequity and tobacco use among vulnerable populations

Tobacco use and exposure is unequally distributed across populations and countries and among women and men. These trends and patterns reflect and cause gender and economic inequities along with negative health impacts. Despite a commitment to gender analysis in the preamble to Framework Convention on Tobacco Control there is much yet to be done to fully understand how gender operates in tobacco control. Policies, program and research in tobacco control need to not only integrate gender, but rather operationalize gender with the goal of transforming gender and social inequities in the course of tobacco control initiatives. Gender transformative tobacco control goes beyond gender sensitive efforts and challenges policy and program developers to apply gender theory in designing their initiatives, with the goal of changing negative gender and social norms and improving social, economic, health and social indicators along with tobacco reduction. This paper outlines what is needed to progress tobacco control in enhancing the status of gendered and vulnerable groups, with a view to reducing gender and social inequities due to tobacco use and exposure.