For instance, household smoking and parents’ education or marital
status predicted smoking for African-American students, while both peers
and household members who smoke influenced Hispanic kids and white teenagers
responded strongly to tobacco-related advertising. But peer pressure
bore the primary blame in all groups.
“Smoking was triggered by mainly by individuals of similar age,” say
Ellen R. Gritz, Ph.D., of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center in Houston and colleagues. “Our findings suggest the need
for strong smoking prevention messages targeting peer pressure, regardless
of ethnic background.”
The study appears in the July issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
Ethnicity plays an important role in teenage smoking. Almost 39 percent
of white high school students and 33 percent of Hispanic students smoke,
while less than 20 percent of black adolescents do. Since 89 percent of
adult smokers took their first puff by age 18, understanding what causes
teenagers to smoke can help refine antismoking campaigns and lessen the
burden of avoidable illness later in life.
In her study, Gritz set out to measure both susceptibility (the likelihood
that a child might start smoking within a year) and the actual onset of
smoking (even as few as one cigarette) in youngsters who were not smokers.
She and her colleagues surveyed 659 fifth, eighth, and 12th graders in
six schools in the Houston-Galveston area. They found that the proportion
of kids who were susceptible to smoking rose from 40.8 percent to 45.7
percent after one year, while those who had smoked at least once had increased
from 34.4 percent to 46 percent.
“Overall, best friends’ smoking was the most powerful predictor
of susceptibility to smoking,” says Gritz. Other risk factors were
Hispanic ethnicity, having had a detention or suspension at school and
exposure to either pro- or anti-tobacco messages.
Peer pressure also takes its toll in crossing the boundary to actual smoking.
“When it came to students in the total group who had ever smoked,” says
Gritz, “the most powerful predictor of smoking was having at least
one best friend who smoked.”
There were a number of factors tying specific ethnicity to smoking susceptibility.
“Exposure to pro-tobacco media messages was a risk factor among
white and African-American students but not Hispanic students,” she
says. “For African-American and Hispanic students, but not for
white students, being in a higher grade in school meant less susceptibility
to
smoking.”
For white students, being female quadrupled chances of susceptibility.
Poor academic performance, friends’ approval of smoking and exposure
to anti-tobacco messages also raised white kids’ risk. Gritz explains
that anti-tobacco messages might predict susceptibility by drawing attention
to smoking or that susceptible kids just might be more likely to remember
anything to do with smoking.
In the ethnic breakdown of smokers, a similar diverse pattern of risk
factors emerged. Exposure to pro-tobacco messages raised the risk for white
students. Having a parent with more than a high school education lowered
the risk among whites, but raised it for black students. Household smoking
was a risk factor for African-American and Hispanic students, but not for
whites. Detention or suspension in the previous year or having unmarried
parents elevated risk for black students.
These different ethnic factors suggest ways of targeting smoking prevention
campaigns, says Gritz. For instance, for African-American students, the
role of family offers hope that helping parents quit smoking may prevent
their kids from talking up the habit.
Gritz added that programs for Hispanic children should deal with cultural
values like “personalismo” (faithfulness to peers), a concept
that may make it seem disloyal to refuse a friend’s offer of a
cigarette.
