Adults with HIV twice as likely to smoke and less likely to quit than general population

Adults with HIV are more likely to smoke and less likely to quit than the general adult population, according to an article being published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

For adults with HIV, cigarette smoking is associated with higher rates of both HIV-related and non-HIV-related illness and death. Responses from 4,217 adults with HIV who participated in the Medical Monitoring Project and 27,731 U.S. adults who participated in the National Health Interview Survey in 2009 were analyzed to compare the prevalence of current cigarette smoking and smoking cessation between the two populations. The surveys showed that adults with HIV were nearly twice as likely to smoke than adults in the general population and less likely to quit. Similar to the general population, HIV-positive adults were significantly more likely to smoke if they had experienced homelessness, incarceration, or poverty in the last year. They were also more likely to smoke if they experienced substance abuse, binge drinking, depression, or a lack of HIV viral suppression. The authors suggest that smoking cessation should be a routine component of HIV care programs and clinical visits.

Cigarette Smoking Prevalence Among Adults With HIV Compared With the General Adult Population in the United States: Cross-sectional Surveys, R. Mdodo, E.L. Frazier, S.R. Dube, C.L. Mattson, M.Y. Sutton, J.T. Brooks, and J. Skarbinski, Annals of Internal Medicine, doi:10.7326/M14-0954, published 2 March 2015.