Worldwide prevalence of smoking in immigration: A global systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Objectives

Considering that smoking is an important aspect of health in the immigrant population, the purpose of this study is therefore to pool studies that have examined smoking in the immigrant population to obtain a pooled prevalence.

Method

This study used the PRISMA protocol. Online available articles until March 2020 in PubMed and Scopus databases were targeted. After collecting the articles, data were extracted from them. The extracted data were analyzed in Stata software and the pooled prevalence of smoking was investigated. For a detailed analysis, several subgroups were analyzed. Heterogeneity was also studied in the studies.

Result

Of the 3585 articles that were found in the two databases, eventually, 52 articles were eligible. The prevalence of smoking is 24% with a confidence interval (CI) between 18% and 30%. For current smoking, the prevalence of smoking is 16% and for former smoking, the prevalence of smoking is 17%. In men, the prevalence of smoking is 38% and for women, the prevalence is 17%. The difference was noticeable in the prevalence of smoking on the continents. Europe has the highest prevalence of immigrant smokers (36%), followed by Asia (18%), American (18%), and Australia (12%). I² and χ2 showed a high degree of heterogeneity.

Conclusion

Given the known effects of smoking on different health dimensions, more attention is needed to the increasing health of the immigrant population.

Keywords:

• Smoking
• meta-analysis
• prevalence
• review
• immigration

Conflict of interest

None to declare.