RESEARCH ARTICLE d

ai on cto e W pl pa ing 87 % of lung cancer deaths) worldwide [2]. Smoking use has now reached 1.2 million per year in China, Wang et al. BMC Public Health (2015) 15:155 DOI 10.1186/s12889-015-1478-yand sometimes lasting for weeks or months [10].Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleis also responsible for many other health problems include heart and blood vessel disease, stroke and cataracts [3]. Ac-cording the Global Burden of Disease study, smoking causes tremendous disability, estimated at 2,276 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per 100,000 [4]. and the death toll is predicted to increase to 2 million in the near future without effective efforts to reduce smoking [9]. Smoking cessation, however, is extremely difficult be-cause of the highly addictive nature of nicotine. Among regular smokers, withdrawal symptoms occur within two hours of the last cigarette, peaking within 24–48 hours * Correspondence: wzhzh972034@gmail.com1Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, Ningxiafrom all causes and 30 % of deaths from cancer (includ-of religious in daily life were measured. The WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview was used to diagnose tobacco use disorders. Three separate logistic regression models were used to examine correlations between religious involvement and smoking status. Results: In the overall sample, religious attendance was inversely associated with current smoking (p < 0.001), as was importance of religion (p < 0.05). Current smoking was also less common in those categorized as high on religious involvement. No association, however, was found between religious involvement and either past smoking or tobacco use disorders. In Muslims, both religion attendance and high religiosity were inversely associated with current smoking (p < 0.001), although no association was found in non-Muslims. Conclusions: Religious involvement is inversely related to current smoking in Western China, although this association depends on religious affiliation