Ethnic variation in socioenvironmental factors that influence adolescent smoking

Purpose: To compare black, Hispanic and white adolescent smokers on socioenvironmental factors associated with smoking. Methods: The study uses a cross-sectional design. A needs assessment of 1305 current, former and never adolescent smokers from four ethnically and geographically diverse sites in the United States was conducted in 1999. Two sites were selected because they represented urban cities in the Northeast and Midwest with a high proportion of black and Hispanic residents. Two additional sites were selected to recruit rural and suburban adolescents. From this larger sample, 181 subjects from three focal ethnic groups (white n = 138; black n = 24; Hispanic n = 19) who had smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and were current smokers (smoked in the past 30 days) were included. The three ethnic groups were compared on the following variables of interest: peer and family influences on smoking, situational factors associated with smoking, places that were likely sites for smoking and perceptions of friends and family as potential support persons for quitting smoking. All data were analyzed with Chi-square analysis. Results: Almost all (96%) of the black adolescents lived with another smoker compared to 68% of Hispanic and 60% of whites (p =.004). Black teens were more likely to smoke with family members (50%) than Hispanics (5%) or whites (25%) (p =.003). In addition, 50% of black teens compared to 5% of Hispanics and 12% of white teens, reported smoking to fit in (p <.0001). Black teens in this study emphasized the familial and social pressures of smoking. Higher rates of acceptance of smoking by family members, role modeling by household members, more prevalent beliefs that smoking is a way to achieve belonging, and lack of perceived support for quitting by friends appear to influence cigarette smoking more for black than white or Hispanic youth. Conclusions: These preliminary results indicate that familial and household norms play a critical role in influencing cigarette smoking among black teens. (c) 2005 Society for Adolescent Medicine. All rights reserved.