The evidence is clear that smoking is unhealthy. The questions are, “Why are we smoking?” and “Why is it so hard to quit?” According to a recent study, smoking is more prevalent in the LGBTQ community than in others, and we are not quitting.
Ollie Ganz, a faculty member at the Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies and an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, who is the lead author of the study “Cigarette Smoking Behaviors and Nicotine Dependence at the Intersection of Sexual Identity and Sex in the United States: Findings from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health,” summarized it for me. She says, “Lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults had higher odds of cigarette smoking, including daily smoking, having nicotine dependence, and lower odds of being a former smoker, than heterosexual adults. This disparity was pronounced among females. For example, cigarette smoking prevalence was 65% higher for LGB vs. heterosexual females, whereas for males, cigarette smoking prevalence was only 27% higher for gay vs. heterosexual males.”
When I asked her what we could do to better the situation, she said, “We need more research on bisexual women and why they aren’t quitting.” She explained that the institutions and methods used for smoking cessation need to meet the unique needs of this population.
Research has found that the LGBTQ population is often subject to a higher prevalence of several serious health and mental health issues. Also, it appears that we tend to be susceptible to some of the aggressive marketing tactics of the tobacco industry. Or perhaps it is that lately this community has been more specifically targeted. In any event, this reinforces the findings of the study, that this community, and in particular, certain subsections, are more prone to smoking and not quitting.
In a Rutgers Today article, “Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Women Smoke More, Are Less Likely to Quit,” Patti Zielinski, assistant director of public and media relations, health affairs, says, “The studies, published in the Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health and Preventive Medicine Reports, investigated how some among the LGBTQ population respond to tobacco marketing, how they use tobacco, and their history of quitting, using two large national datasets, including the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
“The LGBTQ community needs tools to fight against the odds to overcome a predisposition for health issues. We also need to know how to counter the seductions of advertising. The more knowledge we gain and skills we develop, especially armed with the data from such studies, the better we can grow as a healthy community. Hopefully, the political climate will continue to allow research to target LGBTQ folk, especially if it can be segmented into sex and sexual identity as these studies have been. Hopefully, there will be more places to seek help that are specifically well-suited for members of the LGBTQ community.”
Professor Ganz listed several places to go for help in quitting:
tobaccofreenj.com/quit-smoking
OutLast Tobacco – https://cancer-network.org/outlast-tobacco/
