There is no single explanation for why teens start smoking, so concentrate on a single risk factor does not help you better understand why young people smoke, according to a study conducted in Canada.
This is the conclusion of the team of Dr. Jennifer O’Loughlin, who published the results of their study in American Journal of Epidemiology.
O’Loughlin, of the University of Montreal, Quebec, suggests that efforts to prevent smoking should take into account “the individual factors such as age, self-esteem, alcohol use and school performance.”
They should also be considered “contextual factors such as parental smoking and friends, and school smoking policies,” the expert told Reuters Health.
The team investigated how these factors modify the onset smoking in 877 students (half male) who had 13 years at baseline.
Over the next five years, the team interviewed every three months to students on the consumption of snuff and other factors potentially associated with smoking initiation. During this period, 421 (48 percent) began smoking, 87 of them (21 percent), daily. (more…)
