Social integration, psychological distress, and smoking behaviors in a midwest LGBT community.

BACKGROUND: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations have smoking rates twice that of their heterosexual counterparts. To design effective outreach, prevention, and treatments for these individuals, a comprehensive understanding of associated factors is needed. OBJECTIVE: To increase understanding of how social integration and psychological distress are related to smoking behaviors among LGBT populations. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, descriptive study of 135 LGBT adults using an online data collection strategy. Multivariate analyses were performed to examine factors associated with current smoking status. RESULTS: Social integration was not significantly related to smoking behaviors in this LGBT population, although psychological distress was higher among smokers than nonsmokers. CONCLUSIONS: Although social support has been reported to have an impact on health behaviors in the general population, the present findings suggest that the benefits of social support may not apply to the smoking activities of LGBT individuals.