Using Understanding Society, the results revealed associations between age, mental health, and environmental concern (EC) and the frequency someone smokes. This association is useful to understand because smoking pollutes the environment, and very few studies have looked at smoking behaviour from an environmental perspective.
The research found that younger people who had more concern for the environment were likely to smoke less. This is consistent with the other research which suggests that young adults are more likely to have more concern about the environment and are more likely to modify their behaviour for environmental reasons.
In older adults who had more environmental concern, the analysis found that this did not influence the frequency of smoking, whereas environmental concern was negatively associated with smoking in young and middle-aged people. The association was stronger for young people compared to middle-aged people.
This research may help explain why young people are more likely to quit smoking successfully compared to older people . Young people have potentially lower levels of addiction and fewer years of living with tobacco as a regular part of their daily lives but are also more influenced by the environmental impact of smoking.
Mental health association
When the looking at any association between environmental concern, smoking and mental health, the study found that environmental concern did not relate to the smoking frequency in smokers with worse mental health, but did have an effect for people with better mental health. This finding can be explained by the fact that poor mental health is negatively related to smoking. Smokers with fewer mental health problems smoke less when their environmental concern is high.
Policy recommendations
If policymakers want to use environmental concerns as a reason to encourage people to quit smoking, interventions targeting older adults may need to employ strategies that acknowledge and address potential resistance or scepticism toward environmental issues. Tailoring interventions to the specific age-related differences in environmental concern could be effective and enhance the effectiveness of smoking reduction interventions within different age groups.
Understanding Society is used for a range of research on environmental issues. If you’d like to find out more about environmental research that uses Understanding Society data, we have an online event on 28 February looking at the public perception on the transition to net zero. The event is free to attend, but you need to register in advance.
Transition to net zero: a shared public journey?
Transport and environmentYoung people
