Where there's smoke: Cigarette use, social acceptability, and spatial approaches to multilevel modeling
Section snippets
The role of context in maternal smoking: space for advancement
Increasing focus on how the surrounding environment affects individuals has led scholars to examine the impact of local factors on health outcomes and behaviors (see e.g., Boardman, 2004, Kimbro and Denney, 2013, Yang and Matthews, 2010; Morenoff, 2003; Taylor et al., 1997). The primary contextual factors examined in many multilevel studies are those associated with economic advantage and disadvantage (see e.g., Brooks-Gunn et al., 1997, Clarke et al., 2014). The role of local socioeconomic
The elusive link between social acceptability and smoking
The topic of social acceptability has entered into a range of health research. Centrally, scholars have discussed it within the context of multiple dimensions of smoking (e.g., Afifi et al., 2013, Albers et al., 2004, Alesci et al., 2003, Botvin et al., 1992, Daly et al., 1993, Thomson et al., 2005). Research suggests that the smoking behavior of young women is strongly related to the smoking behavior of peers and how acceptable peers find smoking to be (Daly et al., 1993). Beyond smoking,
Incorporating space into multilevel models: methodological and conceptual considerations
Multilevel modeling approaches have become increasingly popular. However, in our excitement to take advantage of the benefits of hierarchical linear modeling and its generalized forms (hence forth referenced simply as “HLM”), researchers have all too often forgotten that HLM is prey to the same statistical concerns as are standard regression analyses. This includes, but is not limited to, concerns regarding the spatial independence of our residuals when analyzing geographically contiguous units
Data
The individual-level data for this project come from restricted natality data with county identifiers that was supplied by the National Center for Health Statistics (2007). These data were linked to 2005–2009 American Community Survey (ACS) county estimates (US Census Bureau, 2010). These data, including sample restrictions and the contextual unit of analysis, are ideal for this project because they have been used in recent research to demonstrate contextual associations with maternal smoking (
Results
Contextual factors are clearly related to the individual-level odds of smoking, suggesting a role of place in shaping health outcomes. Focusing on the level-2 associations, the baseline model for Texas suggests that county SES, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic population concentration are related to a woman's odds of smoking while pregnant (see Table 2). Counties with higher values on the SES scale have lower average odds of smoking during pregnancy. Similarly, a woman's odds – regardless of
Discussion
Place and space are closely linked concepts that overlap and relate in many ways (see Gieryn, 2000, Lobao, 2004; Logan, 2012). Although often difficult to distinguish, both are necessary for explaining how social processes unfold. The incorporation of aspects of space and place has proliferated within the social sciences, but we are less comfortable with addressing issues related to where they intersect. For example, how does space affect our understanding of associations attributed to place?
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by center Grant #R24 HD047873 and training Grant #T32 HD07014 awarded to the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Additional support was received through the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. I would also like to specifically thank Carla Shoff, Justin Denney, and Katherine Curtis for their support while producing this work.
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