To facilitate effective tobacco control, it is important to identify the socioeconomic strata in which different quitting motives are more strongly associated with cessation. This study aims to examine such a moderating role of socioeconomic background. A total of 2022 past or current daily smoking men from the Hong Kong Thematic Household Survey 2010 who had attempted for cessation were analyzed. Binary socioeconomic indicators, quitting motives, and 1-year abstinence were entered in an exploratory backward-stepwise log-linear model, followed by a binary logistic regression to estimate the probability of one-year abstinence in each socioeconomic stratum. Results suggest that the association between cessation and health motives is stronger in less educated men ( P = .004) and nonmarried men ( P = .003). The estimated probability of cessation ranges from 0.02 (95% CI = 0.00-0.06) to 0.96 (95% CI = 0.89-1.00). Accordingly, policy makers should educate less-educated men and nonmarried men about the adverse health impacts of tobacco use.
Keywords: Hong Kong; log-linear modeling; motives for smoking cessation; one-year abstinence; socioeconomic status.