Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Chronic Illness And Smoking Cessation, Kushal Patel, David Schlundt, Celia Larson, Hong Wang, Anne Brown, Margaret Hargreaves

Public Health, Health Administration, and Health Sciences Faculty Research

Introduction

Smoking is among the leading causes of premature mortality and preventable death in the United States. Although smoking contributes to the probability of developing chronic illness, little is known about the relationship between quitting smoking and the presence of chronic illness. The present study investigated the association between diagnoses of one or more chronic diseases (diabetes, hypertension, or high cholesterol) and smoking status (former or current smoker). Methods

The data analyzed were a subset of questions from a 155-item telephone-administered community survey that assessed smoking status, demographic characteristics, and presence of chronic disease. The study sample consisted of 3,802 …