BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Disabilities Disabled people smoke the most!

Why do you think Americans with disabilities SMOKE more than everyone else? According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention report last week (10/4/07), that about 1 of 4 disabled people are smokers compared to only 1 in 5 among the nondisabled. Could this be because many of them are low income, and poor people have higher smoking rates or could it be something else?

It could be, i don't smoke n im low income, guess its good i don't smoke with living off $567.79 a month i wouldn't be able to afford to smoke.

It could be that smoking is so debilitating to the body that these people are on disability because of smoking related diseases.

On the other hand, out of my 6 close friends they all are smokers and all work for a living. Me on the other hand never smoked and i receive disability.

According to the report, 25% of disabled people (or 1 in 4) smoke whereas 20% of nondisabled people smoke (only 1 in 5). Not much difference but in a 2 groups of 1000 people, one group who is disabled and one group who is not, there will be 250 people who smoke in the disabled group compared to 200 people who smoke who are not disabled.

I don't know that they included any statistics on working or not in the report dated 10/4/07. My brother is disabled and lives on less than $900 a month BUT he smokes (and he can't afford it either AND it makes his disability worse). He is one of the 4 disabled people who smokes.

Trish