Over 1.5 million people are incarcerated in state and federal correctional facilities in the United States. Formerly incarcerated men have significantly higher rates of mortality and morbidity than the general population, disparities that have been partially attributed to higher rates of tobacco smoking-related illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease and cancer. Authors used a sample of 172 men released from California state prisons into Oakland and San Francisco between 2009 and 2011 with sub-populations of respondents in the 2009 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) and analyzed the association between lifetime history of incarceration and self-reported smoking status.

Seventy-four percent of men recently released from prison reported being current tobacco smokers. The prevalence of smoking in a demographically similar group of men in the CHIS was 24 percent. The authors found that each additional five years of history of incarceration was associated with 1.32 times greater odds of smoking.