Smoking and deaf adults: associations with age at onset of deafness

Smoking is a major health problem whose prevalence in different populations is thought to be influenced by sociocultural and linguistic factors. Although smoking and hearing loss are positively correlated, little is known about the smoking habits of deaf populations. Using national survey data, this study determined the smoking prevalence in two socioculturally distinct deaf populations, based on age at onset of deafness. The smoking prevalence in each deaf population was compared to the smoking prevalence in the hearing population in multivariate analyses that adjusted for sociodemographics and health status. The smoking prevalence among postlingually deafened adults was not significantly different from that among hearing adults. Prelingually deafened adults were found to be less likely to smoke than hearing adults, even though they have less education and lower income, factors both associated with higher smoking prevalence in other populations. The lower smoking prevalence among prelingually deafened adults may be due to cultural differences or to limited access to English-language tobacco advertising.