Cigarette smoking transition in females of low socioeconomic status: impact of state, school, and individual factors
- Correspondence to: Dr H Kim Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, 1100 Dexter Avenue North, Suite 400, Seattle, WA 98109, USA; kimh{at}battelle.org
- Accepted 10 June 2006
Abstract
Study objective: To examine whether young, especially low socioeconomic status (SES), females are influenced by tobacco control policies in terms of smoking initiation and transition to more adverse stages of smoking behaviour from adolescence to young adulthood.
Design and setting: Data from 2697 young female respondents to the national longitudinal study of adolescent health wave 1 (1994–1995) and wave 3 (2001–2002).
Measurements: The following factors were used to predict the likelihood of smoking initiation and transition to heavier tobacco use between adolescence and young adulthood among females of low, middle, and high SES groups: state level tobacco control policy scores, developed by the US National Cancer Institute, state cigarette excise tax, smoking rate at school, cigarette availability at home, and number of best friends smoking.
Main results: Stronger state level tobacco policies were associated with lower likelihood of smoking initiation and adverse transition among low SES women, although the effect sizes were small. Adolescents who attended schools with higher student smoking rates; adolescents who had easier access to cigarettes at home; and adolescents who had more friends smoking were all more likely to be adverse transitioners by young adulthood.
Conclusions: State level tobacco control policies and individual level factors during adolescence are independently associated with smoking initiation and adverse transition by the onset of young adulthood, especially for low SES females. While states may have very little direct influence on individual level behaviours, through their policies they do have the potential to exert considerable influence on smoking behaviour that persists through adolescence into young adulthood.
Footnotes
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↵* Because no cases in the former smoker category exist in wave 3, we will focus on the first four groups.
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↵† Clerk intervention item was not included for analyses because no states received any positive score for this item in 1995.
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↵‡ No significant interaction effects between race/ethnicity indicators and state tobacco control policies were obtained. Therefore, only the main effects were reported and discussed in the paper.
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Funding: this research was supported by grant RO3 CA105989-01 from the National Cancer Institute. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the National Cancer Institute.
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Conflicts of interest: none.
