Original articleHigh-risk behaviors associated with early smoking: results from a 5-year follow-up☆
Section snippets
Participants
This secondary data analysis uses longitudinal survey data from a sample of 6527 students recruited from 30 California and Oregon schools at grade 7 and assessed again at grade 12 (1985 and 1990, respectively). These adolescents participated in the RAND Adolescent Panel Study, conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Project ALERT drug use prevention program for middle school children (11). The schools were chosen to represent a wide range of community types (urban, suburban, and rural),
Prevalence and profiles of early nonsmokers, experimenters, and smokers
In 7th grade, 46% of adolescents were classified as “nonsmokers,” 32% as “experimenters,” and 22% as “smokers” (weighted percentages). Boys were more likely than girls to be experimenters (37% vs. 27%), but girls were more likely than boys to be smokers (24% vs. 19.4%).
Table 1 shows the weighted percentages of “nonsmokers,” “experimenters,” and “smokers” who exhibited other problem behaviors at grade 7. By middle school, smokers were consistently more likely than nonsmokers to have a variety of
Discussion
Results from this study indicate that early smokers are at higher risk than nonsmokers for a wide range of problem behaviors. Compared with nonsmokers, early smokers at grade 7 were more likely to have academic problems, engage in other types of substance use, and engage in delinquent behavior (stealing). Consistent with previous research (3), the strongest differences between smokers and nonsmokers tended to occur for other types of substance use. Although the behavioral gap between early
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This research was supported by National Cancer Institute grant R01CA80287.