- Title
- A cross sectional survey of internet use among a highly socially disadvantaged population of tobacco smokers
- Creator
- McCrabb, Sam; Twyman, Laura; Palazzi, Kerrin; Guillaumier, Ashleigh; Paul, Christine; Bonevski, Billie
- Relation
- NHMRC.631055 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/631055
- Relation
- Addiction Science & Clinical Practice Vol. 14, Issue 1, no. 38
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13722-019-0168-y
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2019
- Description
- Background: Tobacco smoking is highest among population groups which are the most socially disadvantaged. Internet-based smoking cessation programs have been found to be effective, though rates of internet access are not well known in these groups. This study describes the rates of internet use and types of technology used to access the internet by a population of socially disadvantaged smokers. The study also examined relationships between sociodemographic and smoking behaviours with amount of internet use and type of device used. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 369 clients (response rate 77%) from two non-government community service organisations in metropolitan New South Wales, Australia was conducted using touchscreen computers. Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions were used to examine results. Results: Eligible participants ranged from 19 to 88 years old current tobacco users. Over half (58%) of the participants reported weekly or more frequent use of the internet with less than a third (28%) not having any access. The odds of using the internet at least weekly decreased with age and as heaviness of smoking increased (OR=0.94, p<0.001; OR=0.81, p=0.022, respectively). Odds of internet use were higher as income increased (OR=2.74, p<0.001 for individuals earning $201-$400 per week; OR=2.83, p=0.006 for individuals earning > $400 per week). Device use differed for age and income. Conclusions: Internet-based interventions appear to reach the majority of socially disadvantaged populations. It is expected that this reach will continue to grow, making internet-based interventions a potential platform for providing care to low socioeconomic individuals who smoke, however inequalities may be exacerbated for those individual without internet access. Implications: Internet use among socially disadvantaged tobacco users is moderate (58%). An internet-based smoking cessation intervention for socially disadvantaged tobacco users may be an effective intervention however, older, heavier tobacco users may not benefit as easily due to limited internet access and therefore acknowledging these limitations when developing an intervention can help to acknowledge limitation of intervention reach.
- Subject
- smoking cessation; social disadvantage; internet utilization; intervention; Sustainable Development Goals; SDG 10
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1413052
- Identifier
- uon:36573
- Identifier
- ISSN:1940-0640
- Rights
- © The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licen ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
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