Health Care Utilization of Menthol and Non-menthol Cigarette Smokers.
Friday, August 14, 2020
Posted by: Natalia Gromov
Wang,Y, Watkins, SL, Sung,
HY, Yao, T, Lightwood, J, Max, W.
Health Care Utilization
of Menthol and Non-menthol Cigarette Smokers.
Nicotine & Tobacco Research, ntaa122, https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntaa122
Introduction: To
study the association between health care utilization and menthol cigarette use
and whether the association differed between African American (AA) and non-AA
smokers.
Methods: We
analyzed the three most recent 2005, 2010, and 2015 National Health Interview
Survey Cancer Control Supplements. After incorporating propensity score weights
adjusting for observed differences between menthol and non-menthol users, we
estimated Zero-Inflated Poisson models on hospital nights, emergency department
visits, doctor visits, and home visits as a function of menthol use status and
other covariates separately for current cigarette smokers and recent quitters
(former smokers quitting cigarette smoking ≤ 4 years).
Results: Although
current menthol smokers smoked fewer cigarettes per day than current
non-menthol smokers, they did not differ from current non-menthol smokers in
health care utilization. Among recent quitters, those who used to smoke menthol
cigarettes had higher odds of having hospital nights than those who used to
smoke non-menthol cigarettes. However, we did not find any significant
association between menthol use and other health care utilization—emergency
department visits, doctor visits, and home visits—among recent quitters.
Moreover, compared with non-AA recent quitters, AA recent quitters had higher
odds of having home visits, but fewer home visits, if they used to smoke
menthol cigarettes.
Conclusion: Menthol
use was associated with greater hospitalization among recent quitters, and the
association between home visits and menthol use differed between AA and non-AA
recent quitters.
Implications: This
is the first study that used econometric models to study the association
between health care utilization and menthol cigarette use and examine whether
the association differed between AA and non-AA smokers. Our study found health
care utilization did not differ by menthol use status for current smokers,
although current menthol smokers smoked fewer cigarettes per day than current
non-menthol smokers. However, we found menthol use was associated with higher
odds of having hospital nights for recent quitters. We also found AA recent
quitters had a different association between home visits and menthol use
compared with non-AA recent quitters.
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