Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Addictive Behaviors
Short Communication
H I G H L I G H T S
Results from the 2010 National Survey in Taiwan are shown.
Religious involvement does not affect heavy smoking and heavy drinking.
Buddhism, Taoism and folk region are positively related with heavy betel nut chewing.
a r t i c l e
Keywords:
Religion
Cigarette smoking
Alcohol
Betel nut
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
The results of a national survey of determinants of drinking, smoking and betel-nut chewing behaviors are
analyzed. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether drinking, smoking and betel-nut
chewing are inuenced by a variety of religions based on Taiwan data. Our results suggest that Buddhism, Taoism
and practitioners of Chinese folk region are positively associated with heavy betel nut chewing while the religion
effects on heavy smoking and drinking are statistically insignicant. Our ndings on religion effects in Taiwan can
be a valuable reference for comparison in Christian and western countries.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
From the standpoints of individual decisions under uncertainty,
religion may affect smoking behaviors via the two channels, religion
beliefs and religious activities. Individuals obtain a sense of certainty
from religious activities like prayer, Bile reading and religious media
viewing (Chang & Chen, 2013; Koenig et al., 1998). On the other hand,
religious beliefs reconcile uncertainty through providing a channel for
the reduction of loss, anxiety, pain and suffering (Brown & Gary,
1994). As a result, religious involvement decreases cigarette smoking.
Numerous empirical papers have proven the negative relationship
between religious involvement and cigarette smoking. Brown and
Gary (1994) nd that AfricanAmerican males who attend church are
less likely to drink daily alcohol and cigarette smoking from a sample
of 537 males residing in a major US urban area. Koenig et al. (1998)
show that religious involvement is associated with low rates of cigarette
smoking based on the sample of 3968 person aged age 65 years or older
participating in the Duke Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the
Elderly (EPESE) survey. Different from previous sample containing
elderly people or AfricanAmerican males, Whooley, Boyd, Gardin,
and Williams (2002) focus on 4544 adults aged 20 to 32 years including
approximately equal numbers of blacks and whites and men and
women from 4 cities in the United States. Their data conrms the
Tel.: +886 49 22910960x4629; fax: +886 49 22914435.
E-mail address: ming@ncnu.edu.tw.
0306-4603/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2013.10.003
Variables
Age
Exercise
Health
Income
Dummy variables
Heavy drinking
Heavy smoking
Heavy betel-nut
chewing
Male
Married
High school
College
Employment
Table 2
The estimations of heavy drinking, heavy smoking and heavy betel-nut chewing from logit
regression model.
Buddhism
(N = 412)
Taoism
(N = 298)
Folk religion
(N = 649)
Christianity
(N = 93)
Mean
Mean
Mean
S.T.D.
Mean
S.T.D.
17.12
1.82
0.93
2.75
47.20
3.33
3.73
3.40
15.31
1.81
0.91
4.41
49.19
3.30
3.69
2.80
n
S.T.D.
15.26
1.85
1.01
2.98
%
46.23
3.24
3.76
2.78
n
S.T.D.
16.71
1.80
0.98
2.97
%
47.67
3.13
3.77
2.45
n
12
41
15
2.91
9.95
3.64
18
44
14
6.04
14.77
4.70
36
74
23
5.55
11.40
3.54
3
5
1
3.23
5.38
1.08
186
326
157
107
239
45.15
79.13
38.11
25.97
58.01
171
212
112
89
181
57.38
71.14
37.58
29.87
60.74
326
484
241
154
371
50.23
74.58
37.13
23.73
57.16
41
68
29
44
55
44.09
73.12
31.18
47.31
59.14
variety of regional afliations. While most of the variables are selfexplanatory, some need additional explanation, given below.
Exercise denotes the frequency of exercise to make you sweat per
week. Possible answers are (1) never, (2) less than one time, (3) one
time, (4) two or three times, (5) from four to six times, and (6) seven
or seven more times. Health is an ordered variable that contains the
information of self-reported health status ranging from 1 to 5. Income
is average monthly labor income, divided by NT$10,000. Employment
is a binary variable indicating whether the respondent has a job. Three
dependent variables are Heavy smoking, Heavy drinking and Heavy
betel-nut chewing. Heavy smoking is a binary variable indicating whether
the daily consumption of smoking is not less than one package of 20
cigarettes. Heavy drinking is a binary variable indicating whether the
responder drinks alcohol every day. Heavy betel-nut chewing is a binary
indicator measuring whether the responder chews betel nut every day.
2.2. Model
Due to the binary nature of dependent variable, we adopt a logit
regression model.
Given the example of heavy smoking, the probability of Heavy
smoking is specied as:
P Y 1jX F Z
1
;
1 eZ
where Y=I if the respondent has heavy betel nut chewing problem; X is
a vector of explanatory variables; Z is a linear equation as Z = 'X.
The posterior probability of heavy smoking can also be derived from
the following logit specication:
0
P
X:
Log
1p
363
Variables
Religion
Buddhism
Taoism
Folk religion
Christian
Heavy drinking
Heavy smoking
Heavy betel-nut
chewing
Odds
ratio
t statistics
Odds
ratio
t statistics
Odds
ratio
t statistics
0.94
1.6
1.62
1.33
0.14
1.26
1.45
0.43
1.04
1.23
0.95
0.66
0.17
0.82
0.24
0.78
3.11
3.53
2.59
1.19
2.24**
2.47**
1.98**
0.16
5.77***
0.03
0.08
0.27
2.77***
1.07
0.25
1.61
0.36
20.89
10.39***
0.97
3.65***
1.35
1.24
0.58
2.52**
0.08
7.76***
0.84
3.64***
0.95
0.55
1.19
0.81
1
0.06
494.21
0.26
Demographic factors
Male
15.15
Age
1
Married
0.97
High school
1.09
College
0.3
Exercise
0.93
Health
1.03
Employment
1.69
Income
1.01
Log likelihood
289.2
Pseudo R2
0.16
2.98
3.4***
0.97
2.09**
1.27
0.58
0.29
3.42***
0.18
3.63***
0.8
2.46**
0.95
0.34
2.67
2.38**
1
0.08
228.12
0.13
Note: *** Signicance at the 1% level; ** Signicance at the 5% level; * Signicance at the
10% level.
364
contrast, Buddhism, Taoism and folk region are positively associated with
heavy betel nut chewing. It may not be the direct effect of religion on betel
nut chewing, but arises from the relationship among religious belief, betel
nut chewing and professional classes. Our ndings on religion effects in
Taiwan can be a valuable reference for comparison in Christian and
western countries.
Contributors
Dr. Chang-Ming Chen is the sole author of the paper.
Conict of interest
None.
References
Asia-Pacic Biotech (2001). Professor Ko Ying-chin wins inaugural Wang Min-ning
Award. APBN, 5(2), 51.
Borras, L., Mohr, S., Brandt, P. Y., & Gillieron, C. (2008). Inuence of spirituality and
religiousness on smoking among patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective
disorders in Switzerland. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 54(6), 539549.
Brown, D. R., & Gary, L. E. (1994). Religious involvement and health status among African
American males. Journal of National Medical Association, 86(11), 825831.
Chang, J. C., & Chen, C. M. (2013). Macroeconomic uctuation and temple visitor in
Taiwan. Annals of Tourism Research, 41, 219224.
Koenig, H. G., George, L. K., Chen, J. K., Hays, J. C., Larson, J. C., & Blazer, D.G. (1998). The
relationship between religious activities and cigarette smoking in older adults.
Journal of Gerontology: Medical Science, 53(6), 426434.
Garrusi, B., & Nakhaee, N. (2012). Religion and smoking: A review of recent literature.
International Journal of Psychiatry Medicine, 43(3), 279292.
Nakhaee, N., Divsalar, K., & Jadidi, N. (2009). Religious activities and cigarette smoking
among Iranian university students. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine,
39(2), 189198.
Whooley, M.A., Boyd, A. L., Gardin, J. M., & Williams, D. R. (2002). Religious involvement
and cigarette smoking in young adults: The CARDIA study. Archives of Internal
Medical, 162(14), 16041610.