Dataset Information

Association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions: Cross sectional surveys in England 2015-2020.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Cigarette smoking takes place within a cultural and social context. Political views and practices are an important part of that context. To gain a better understanding of smoking, it may be helpful to understand its association with voting patterns as an expression of the political views and practices of the population who smoke. This study aimed to assess the association between cigarette smoking and voting intentions and to examine how far any association can be explained by sociodemographic factors and alcohol use.

Methods

Pooled monthly representative repeat cross-sectional household surveys of adults (16+) in England (N = 55,482) between 2015 and 2020 were used to assess the association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions, and whether this was accounted for by age, occupational grade, gender, region and alcohol use. Voting intention was measured by asking 'How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?' Respondents chose from a list of the major English political parties or indicated their intention not to vote.

Results

In adjusted multinomial regression, compared with intending to vote Conservative (majority party of government during the period), being undecided (aOR1.22 [1.13-1.33] <0.001), intending to vote Labour (aOR1.27 [1.16-1.36] <0.001), to vote "Other" (aOR1.54 [1.37-1.72] <0.001), or not to vote (aOR1.93 [1.77-2.11] <0.001) was associated with higher odds of current relative to never smoking rates. Intending to vote for the Liberal Democrats was associated with a significant lower odds of current smoking prevalence (aOR0.80 [0.70-0.91] <0.001) compared with intending to vote Conservative.

Conclusions

Controlling for a range of other factors, current as compared with never-smokers appear more likely to intend not to vote, to be undecided, to vote for Labour or a non-mainstream party, and less likely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, compared with the Conservative party.

SUBMITTER: Cox S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8665625 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions: Cross sectional surveys in England 2015-2020.

Cox Sharon S Brown Jamie J McQuire Cheryl C de Vocht Frank F Beard Emma E West Robert R Shahab Lion L

BMC public health 20211211 1

<h4>Background and aims</h4>Cigarette smoking takes place within a cultural and social context. Political views and practices are an important part of that context. To gain a better understanding of smoking, it may be helpful to understand its association with voting patterns as an expression of the political views and practices of the population who smoke. This study aimed to assess the association between cigarette smoking and voting intentions and to examine how far any association can be exp ...[more]

PMID: 34895194

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Dataset Information

Association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions: Cross sectional surveys in England 2015-2020.

Background and aims

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions: Cross sectional surveys in England 2015-2020.

Similar Datasets

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