Daily Smoking in Saskatoon: The Independent Effect of Income and Cultural Status

Objective: Smoking prevalence in the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) went from 23.9% in 2003 to 23.3% in 2005 to 26.2% in 2007. The prevalence of smoking within the SHR Aboriginal population is substantially higher than the rest of the population. The purpose of the current study was to determine the independent effects of Aboriginal cultural status and income status on daily smoking status. Methods: Data from three cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey (2001, 2003, 2005) were merged with identical data collected by the SHR in 2007. All four cycles were random telephone survey samples. Results: 5948 participants (81.1 % response rate) completed the survey. After cross-tabulation, Aboriginal cultural status and income were strongly associated with daily smoking status. Using logistic regression, the odds of daily smoking for residents of Aboriginal cultural status was reduced substantially from the initial odds of 3.43 to 2.26 after adjusting for income alone, and reduced further to 1.57 after full multivariate adjustment. Conclusion: Given the association between smoking status and income status, future policies to reduce smoking prevalence should include generic policies to reduce income disparity as well as targeted strategies to improve the social conditions of Aboriginal people.