Smoking status and voting behaviour and intentions in countries of the former Soviet Union

Smokers experience multiple disadvantages throughout their lives, yet there is another disadvantage, political, that is less widely recognised. Smokers are less likely to vote but only so far in studies conducted in Western democratic regimes. This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the association between current smoking and voting behaviour and intentions in nine countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Data were analysed from 18,000 individuals aged ≥ 18 in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, collected in the Health in Times of Transition (HITT) survey in 2010/11. Information was obtained on smoking status and voting behaviour and intentions. In a fully adjusted logistic regression analysis, current smoking was associated with significantly higher odds of 'never voting' (not having voted in the past or intending to vote in future) in the pooled sample (OR: 1.29, 95% CI 1.13-1.47). In stratified analyses, smoking was associated with never voting in women but not men and in young but not middle-aged or older adults. The smoking-never voting association was observed in flawed democracies (OR: 1.57, 95% CI 1.07-2.32) and hybrid regimes (OR: 1.31, 95% CI 1.08-1.59) but not in authoritarian regimes (OR: 1.02, 95% CI 0.81-1.29). Smoking is associated with never voting in these FSU countries although not in all population subgroups or types of political regime. A necessary task for future research will be determining the factors associated with not voting among smokers in these countries.