Addictive Behaviors 39 (2014) 362364

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Addictive Behaviors

Short Communication

The inuence of religious afliation on heavy drinking, heavy smoking and

heavy betel nut chewing
Chiang-Ming Chen
Department of Economics, National Chi-Nan University, 1 University Rd., Puli, Nantou 545, Taiwan, ROC

H I G H L I G H T S
Results from the 2010 National Survey in Taiwan are shown.
Religious involvement does not affect heavy smoking and heavy drinking.
Buddhism, Taoism and folk region are positively related with heavy betel nut chewing.

a r t i c l e
Keywords:
Religion
Cigarette smoking
Alcohol
Betel nut

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
The results of a national survey of determinants of drinking, smoking and betel-nut chewing behaviors are
analyzed. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate whether drinking, smoking and betel-nut
chewing are inuenced by a variety of religions based on Taiwan data. Our results suggest that Buddhism, Taoism
and practitioners of Chinese folk region are positively associated with heavy betel nut chewing while the religion
effects on heavy smoking and drinking are statistically insignicant. Our ndings on religion effects in Taiwan can
be a valuable reference for comparison in Christian and western countries.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
From the standpoints of individual decisions under uncertainty,
religion may affect smoking behaviors via the two channels, religion
beliefs and religious activities. Individuals obtain a sense of certainty
from religious activities like prayer, Bile reading and religious media
viewing (Chang & Chen, 2013; Koenig et al., 1998). On the other hand,
religious beliefs reconcile uncertainty through providing a channel for
the reduction of loss, anxiety, pain and suffering (Brown & Gary,
1994). As a result, religious involvement decreases cigarette smoking.
Numerous empirical papers have proven the negative relationship
between religious involvement and cigarette smoking. Brown and
Gary (1994) nd that AfricanAmerican males who attend church are
less likely to drink daily alcohol and cigarette smoking from a sample
of 537 males residing in a major US urban area. Koenig et al. (1998)
show that religious involvement is associated with low rates of cigarette
smoking based on the sample of 3968 person aged age 65 years or older
participating in the Duke Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the
Elderly (EPESE) survey. Different from previous sample containing
elderly people or AfricanAmerican males, Whooley, Boyd, Gardin,
and Williams (2002) focus on 4544 adults aged 20 to 32 years including
approximately equal numbers of blacks and whites and men and
women from 4 cities in the United States. Their data conrms the
Tel.: +886 49 22910960x4629; fax: +886 49 22914435.
E-mail address: ming@ncnu.edu.tw.
0306-4603/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2013.10.003

negative religion effects on young adult smokers. Similar results also

be presented in the study of smoking among Switzer and Iranian,
respectively (Borras, Mohr, Brandt, & Gillieron, 2008; Nakhaee,
Divsalar, & Jadidi, 2009). After conducting literature survey, Garrusi
and Nakhaee (2012) claim that almost all studies put attentions on
Christian and developed countries. There is an obvious need for
empirical work to examine the religion inuence on smoking in the
context of non-Christian. To t the gap, the purpose of this study is to
empirically investigate whether heavy drinking, heavy smoking and
heavy betel nut chewing are inuenced by a variety of religions based
on Taiwan data.

2. Material and method

2.1. Data and variables
The data of this study is based on Taiwan Social Change Survey
(TSCS) that were collected in 2010. The national-wide survey adopts
a Probability Proportionate to Size Sampling procedure (PPS) to interview 1895 individuals. Among 1895 respondents, 412 are Buddhists,
298 are Taoists, 649 practitioners of Chinese folk religion and 93 are
Christians. It is common for Taiwanese to practice a blend of the three
former religions. In general, religion in Taiwan can be characterized by
a diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Table 1 reports the
descriptive statistics of all variables used in our empirical analysis by a

C.-M. Chen / Addictive Behaviors 39 (2014) 362364

Table 1
Descriptive statistics.

Variables
Age
Exercise
Health
Income
Dummy variables
Heavy drinking
Heavy smoking
Heavy betel-nut
chewing
Male
Married
High school
College
Employment

Table 2
The estimations of heavy drinking, heavy smoking and heavy betel-nut chewing from logit
regression model.

Buddhism
(N = 412)

Taoism
(N = 298)

Folk religion
(N = 649)

Christianity
(N = 93)

Mean

Mean

Mean

S.T.D.

Mean

S.T.D.

17.12
1.82
0.93
2.75

47.20
3.33
3.73
3.40

15.31
1.81
0.91
4.41

49.19
3.30
3.69
2.80
n

S.T.D.
15.26
1.85
1.01
2.98
%

46.23
3.24
3.76
2.78
n

S.T.D.
16.71
1.80
0.98
2.97
%

47.67
3.13
3.77
2.45
n

12
41
15

2.91
9.95
3.64

18
44
14

6.04
14.77
4.70

36
74
23

5.55
11.40
3.54

3
5
1

3.23
5.38
1.08

186
326
157
107
239

45.15
79.13
38.11
25.97
58.01

171
212
112
89
181

57.38
71.14
37.58
29.87
60.74

326
484
241
154
371

50.23
74.58
37.13
23.73
57.16

41
68
29
44
55

44.09
73.12
31.18
47.31
59.14

variety of regional afliations. While most of the variables are selfexplanatory, some need additional explanation, given below.
Exercise denotes the frequency of exercise to make you sweat per
week. Possible answers are (1) never, (2) less than one time, (3) one
time, (4) two or three times, (5) from four to six times, and (6) seven
or seven more times. Health is an ordered variable that contains the
information of self-reported health status ranging from 1 to 5. Income
is average monthly labor income, divided by NT$10,000. Employment
is a binary variable indicating whether the respondent has a job. Three
dependent variables are Heavy smoking, Heavy drinking and Heavy
betel-nut chewing. Heavy smoking is a binary variable indicating whether
the daily consumption of smoking is not less than one package of 20
cigarettes. Heavy drinking is a binary variable indicating whether the
responder drinks alcohol every day. Heavy betel-nut chewing is a binary
indicator measuring whether the responder chews betel nut every day.
2.2. Model
Due to the binary nature of dependent variable, we adopt a logit
regression model.
Given the example of heavy smoking, the probability of Heavy
smoking is specied as:
P Y 1jX F Z

1
;
1 eZ

where Y=I if the respondent has heavy betel nut chewing problem; X is
a vector of explanatory variables; Z is a linear equation as Z = 'X.
The posterior probability of heavy smoking can also be derived from
the following logit specication:


0
P
X:
Log
1p

363

Variables
Religion
Buddhism
Taoism
Folk religion
Christian

Heavy drinking

Heavy smoking

Heavy betel-nut
chewing

Odds
ratio

t statistics

Odds
ratio

t statistics

Odds
ratio

t statistics

0.94
1.6
1.62
1.33

0.14
1.26
1.45
0.43

1.04
1.23
0.95
0.66

0.17
0.82
0.24
0.78

3.11
3.53
2.59
1.19

2.24**
2.47**
1.98**
0.16

5.77***
0.03
0.08
0.27
2.77***
1.07
0.25
1.61
0.36

20.89
10.39***
0.97
3.65***
1.35
1.24
0.58
2.52**
0.08
7.76***
0.84
3.64***
0.95
0.55
1.19
0.81
1
0.06
494.21
0.26

Demographic factors
Male
15.15
Age
1
Married
0.97
High school
1.09
College
0.3
Exercise
0.93
Health
1.03
Employment
1.69
Income
1.01
Log likelihood
289.2
Pseudo R2
0.16

2.98
3.4***
0.97
2.09**
1.27
0.58
0.29
3.42***
0.18
3.63***
0.8
2.46**
0.95
0.34
2.67
2.38**
1
0.08
228.12
0.13

Note: *** Signicance at the 1% level; ** Signicance at the 5% level; * Signicance at the
10% level.

observed, while a decreased OR of heavy smoking is observed for

College, indicating the negative inuence of education on cigarette
smoking.
A similar pattern is shown in Column 2 of Table 2. The signicant
tests on four religion variables show non-signicance. The ndings are
inconsistent with those found in Christian or western countries. The
OR for Male in heavy smoking is bigger than that in heavy drinking. A
signicantly increased OR for high school and college graduates are
presented. On the other hand, age and exercise are negatively with
the likelihood of heavy smoking based on signicantly increased OR.
Column 3 of Table 2 shows the estimations of heavy betel nut
chewing. A striking pattern on religion inuences are shown based on
the signicantly increased OR for Buddhism, Taoism, and Folk religion.
The positive effect of religion on betel nut chewing seems not very
intuitive. The positive may arise from the fact that religion and betel
nut chewing depend on some common unobserved factors such as
professional classes. For example, chewing of betel nuts is a common
habit among Taiwan's blue-collared workers (Asia-Pacic Biotech,
2001). Moreover, most of Taiwan's blue-collared workers are Buddhist,
Taoists and practitioners of Chinese folk religion while less than 1% of
Taiwan's blue-collar workers are Christian.1 Consequently, the positive
relationship between religion and betel nut chewing is derived here.
Other demographic effects are virtually unchanged. Male and Employment
have positive impacts on heavy betel nut chewing while Age, High school
and College decrease heavy betel nut chewing.
4. Discussion

In the current paper, we measure the relative change in the odds of

the response variable y for a 1 unit increase in regressor by calculating
the odds ratio as exp('). If the odds ratio (OR) is bigger than 1, then
the underlying probability has increased.
3. Results
Table 2 presented the estimated results of heavy drinking, heavy
smoking and betel nut chewing from logit model. In Column 1 of
Table 2, all religion variables are not statistically signicant. For socioeconomic factors, a signicantly increased OR for male respondents is

In the present study, we evaluate the association of religion with the

likelihood of heavy drinking, heavy smoking and heavy betel nut
chewing. Many religious studies have been conducted in western
countries to clarify the association between cigarette smoking and
Christian. Compared with these reported studies, ours is unique in
examining whether heavy smoking, heavy drinking and heavy betel
nut chewing are affected by a diversity of religious afliations.
The logit regression results suggest that for heavy smoking and heavy
drinking the religious inuence is statistically insignicant. Different from
ndings in previous studies, the religion effect becomes negligible. In
1
Detailed information is available on the mission in Taiwan website: http://www.send.
org/resources/send/pdf-print-items/Country_Tag___ASIA_Taiwan.pdf.

364

C.-M. Chen / Addictive Behaviors 39 (2014) 362364

contrast, Buddhism, Taoism and folk region are positively associated with
heavy betel nut chewing. It may not be the direct effect of religion on betel
nut chewing, but arises from the relationship among religious belief, betel
nut chewing and professional classes. Our ndings on religion effects in
Taiwan can be a valuable reference for comparison in Christian and
western countries.

Role of funding sources

This research does not receive any nancial supports.

Contributors
Dr. Chang-Ming Chen is the sole author of the paper.

Conict of interest
None.

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