Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

This study examined personal, psychosocial, sociocultural, and environmental predictors in tobacco use for 1,671 Arab American adolescents. Cigarette smoking in the past 30 days was 6.9%. This increased from 1% at age 14 to 14% at age 18. Twenty-nine percent of the youths reported having ever smoked cigarettes. Experimentation with narghile was 27%; it increased from 23% at 14 years to 40% at 18 years. All trends were significant (p < .001). Logistic regression analyses found 11 predictors for having smoked a cigarette in the past 30 days and 9 and 7 predictors, respectively, for having ever smoked a cigarette or the narghile. Tobacco use by friends and family members was the strongest predictor of cigarette and narghile smoking. Narghile use supported cigarette smoking.