Original article
The role of social influences and tobacco availability on adolescent smokeless tobacco use1

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1054-139X(96)00272-8Get rights and content

Objective:

To examine the potential explanatory effect of various demographic, social influence, sanction, and tobacco availability variables on the use of smokeless tobacco (ST) by adolescent males.

Design:

The data used in our analyses are from a community-based tobacco policy intervention trial that included a 60-item baseline school survey. During Spring 1993, all 8th, 9th, and 10th-grade students enrolled in 14 school districts in small Minnesota cities were surveyed. We used mixed-model logistic regression to determine which variables were significantly correlated with smokeless tobacco use by males in the past week.

Results:

Of this sample of 2924 adolescent males, 10% (n = 291) reported using smokeless tobacco in the past week. Compared to the overall sample, smokeless tobacco users reported higher family and friend use of smokeless tobacco. In addition, 64% of users reported smoking in the past 30 days, and almost half (49.1%) said they had attempted to purchase tobacco in the past 30 days. Variables found to be significantly associated with smokeless tobacco use in the past week included younger age, having a best friend using tobacco, inflated perceptions of their peers' use of tobacco products, beliefs that school and parental sanctions are not high for tobacco use, recent tobacco purchase, and perceived belief that tobacco is not difficult to obtain from social sources.

Conclusions:

This study confirms previous research correlating demographic and social influence factors with ST use and demonstrates the role that sanction and availability variables play in ST use.

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Cited by (22)

  • Perceived enforcement of school tobacco policy and adolescents' cigarette smoking

    2009, Preventive Medicine
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    Our findings also suggest that students' perception of school anti-smoking policy enforcement not only relates to cigarette smoking on school property, but may also influence the likelihood of cigarette smoking in other settings and social contexts. The social nature of cigarette smoking among adolescents (Biglan et al., 1995; Boyle et al., 1997; Robinson et al., 2006), together with the idea that schools are a central arena for peer group interactions (Dishion et al., 1999; Stattin and Magnusson, 1996), may help to explain this broader influence of perceived school policy enforcement. The results of this study should be considered in light of several limitations.

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1

R.G.B. was supported as a Research Fellow with grants (DA 05844; DA 05013) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. A.J.C. and J.L.F. were supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (CA 54893).

1

R.G.B. is currently at Group Health Foundation.

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