The validity of self-reports of smoking: Analyses by race/ethnicity in a school sample of urban adolescents

Objectives. This research compared the validity of self-reports of cigarette smoking for African-American, Hispanic, and White respondents. Previous research has raised a question about the validity of self-report for African Americans. Methods. A self-report of cigarette smoking was obtained together with a measure of carbon monoxide from expired air. Convergence between self-reported smoking and the biochemical measure was analyzed separately for three ethnic groups at 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, and 10th grade. Results. Analyses indicated that the validity of self-reports of smoking was generally comparable across ethnic groups. Sensitivity and specificity were comparable with data reported in recent meta-analyses. Though sensitivity was slightly lower for minority adolescents than for White adolescents, prevalence rates corrected for group differences in sensitivity showed significantly lower smoking rates for African-American and Hispanic adolescents than for White adolescents. Conclusions. The lower smoking rates reported for African-American adolescents are real and are not substantially a consequence of reporting artifacts.