Cigarette Smoking, Alcohol Intake and Health Status of Older Persons in England: the Mediating Effects of Sociodemograph
- PDF / 257,605 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 83 Downloads / 167 Views
Cigarette Smoking, Alcohol Intake and Health Status of Older Persons in England: the Mediating Effects of Sociodemographic and Economic Factors Oladele Ademola Atoyebi 1 & Gloria Chepngeno Langat 2 & Qian Xiong 3 Accepted: 18 September 2020/ Published online: 6 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This study was conducted to determine whether there is an association between cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and self-reported health status among older persons and how sociodemographic and socio-economic factors mediate the association between these lifestyle behaviours and health in old age. Data from wave 7 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) were analysed using bivariate and logistic regression method. Self-reported health status was assessed as a binary variable; cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption as independent variables; and age, sex, marital status, education, employment as well as financial status were assessed as covariates. Smoking had a significant inverse association with reported health status and the odds of reporting good health status versus bad health status was 59% and 38% times less for former and current smokers respectively compared with those that never smoked. However, mild alcohol consumption seemed to have a significant positive association with health status, while a negative association existed between heavy alcohol consumption and health. Sociodemographic and economic factors did not appear to mediate the effects of smoking and alcohol consumption on health status. This study provided evidence that it is important to consider interventions on smoking and heavy alcohol drinking behaviours on good health status of older adults. Keywords Smoking . Alcohol . Older adults . Self-reported health
* Oladele Ademola Atoyebi [email protected] Gloria Chepngeno Langat [email protected] Qian Xiong [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Ageing Int (2020) 45:380–392
381
Introduction Tobacco use has been closely associated with alcohol misuse and both have significant impact on the health of older adults (Schulte and Hser 2014). The health effects of heavy alcohol consumption in the context of smoking increases the risks of a person suffering greater harm. Thus, there is a synergy of effects from cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. Research has shown that people who smoked, and consumed alcohol heavily had a cognitive decline 36% faster than people who drank alcohol moderately without smoking(Hagger-Johnson et al. 2013). Overall cigarette smoking and alcohol intake have been shown to be significantly associated with deteriorating health status and premature mortality in the general population(Scott and Happell 2011; Whitfield et al. 2018). However, there is a gap in knowledge about the extent to which these factors are associated with health in old age. Previous research show that alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are major risk factors f
Data Loading...
