Does physical activity increase the smoking prevalence? Finding from URBAN-HEART2

Introduction Unhealthy behaviors like smoking can be influenced by many socioeconomic factors. As they play an important role in social and individual health matters, it is important to identify the important risk factors of smoking and the relationship with physical activity (PA) to improve them. The aim of this study was evaluation of the relationship between different domains of PA and smoking with the moderators of sex, family income satisfaction, housing status and violence. Method This study was a comprehensive survey with a cross-sectional study in 22 districts and 368 neighborhoods of Tehran from 2011-2021. Data was analyzed by Stata 17. We evaluated the relationship between different type of PA (work-time, leisure-time and travel-time) and smoking with moderators mentioned above. Result Out of 7388 participants, the majority of them were male (83.75%) and married (77.6%). There was a significant relationship between smoking and gender, age, family income satisfaction, unemployment, family violence, education, housing status (P-value<0.001), and sufficient PA (P-value<0.005) in the specific analysis. Also, higher education was associated with more PA (P-value<0.001). Conclusion Sufficient work-time PA, being male, married, having an intermediate level of education, family violence, low family income satisfaction, not owning a house status and generally lower socioeconomic status (SES) can increase the smoking rate.