Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine
51 Correlates of Quit Attempts: How Healthcare Mistrust Influences Smoking Behavior Among Racial and Ethnic Minorities
Asia Thompson; Teresa DeAtley; and Abby Baker
Faculty Mentor: Teresa DeAtley (Family & Preventative Medicine, University of Utah)
Introduction
In the United States (U.S.) smoking continues to be a major public health concern, where approximately, 1 in 5 deaths are due to tobacco related disease.1 While combustible tobacco use has decreased over the last two decades, population data demonstrates that tobacco use remains high in specific subpopulations of tobacco users, such as racial and ethnic minorities. 1,2Evidence based practices for smoking cessation are successful in helping tobacco users quit.3,4,5 For example, cigarette users who use counseling and smoking cessation support have been able to successfully quit smoking.5 However, barriers exist for racial and ethnic minorities when accessing these resources.2 The socioecological model examines how racial and ethnic minority status interacts with healthcare mistrust influencing smoking behavior, specifically quit attempts. Limited evidence has considered how health care distrust is associated with smoking behaviors. The general literature on race and trust in the healthcare system shows that healthcare distrust influences healthcare utilization, and smoking outcomes.6,7 Specific racial and ethnic groups such as African Americans and those of Latin American descent, report higher levels of medical mistrust compared to non-minority groups. Contributing factors for mistrust include public perceptions, and discriminatory experiences within healthcare settings.8 Johanna Birhauer et al. highlight that trust in healthcare professionals is needed for effective patient care and positive health outcomes, emphasizing the need to build trust to improve quit attempts among tobacco users.4This summer research examined the association between health-related trust in commercial and governmental health systems and quit attempts among a diverse sample of adult cigarette users hypothesizing that racial and ethnic minorities would be less likely to attempt quitting due to higher levels of mistrust. Understanding their association is essential to contribute to more effective smoking cessation strategies for racially and ethnically diverse populations.
Methods
We conducted a preliminary secondary analysis of data gathered from adults between the ages of 21 and 65 years, who resided in the United States, using Prolific crowdsourcing web panels. This analysis focused on cigarette users only, we used data from participants with a smoking status of “current”, and “recent”. Given the nature of our research question our study team excluded non-smokers from this analysis. We conducted univariate and bivariate analysis and logistic regressions (not controlling for covariates) to examine the effect of governmental and commercial health-related trust on two outcomes: 1)