Original articleDo popular students smoke? The association between popularity and smoking among middle school students
Section snippets
Variations by gender and ethnicity
Smoking and peer influences on smoking may vary by gender and ethnicity [32]. In the United States, smoking is more prevalent among White and Hispanic adolescents than among African-American and Asian adolescents [33], [34]. Evidence exists that smoking rates differ by gender, with adolescent boys showing slightly higher smoking prevalence rates than adolescent girls [35].
Peer influence to smoke may also vary by gender and ethnicity. Urberg and others [36] found that boys seemed to be more
Network position
Most studies of peer influence focus on individuals and the behavior of their immediate social networks. A different approach, however, has been to determine whether an individual’s position in a social network is associated with the individual’s behavior. For example, being a member of a group composed of smokers is associated with smoking. Michell and Amos [43] showed that adolescents who belonged to groups where smoking was common were more likely to smoke. Pearson and West [44], in a 3-wave
Methods
This study was nested within a larger trial evaluating 2 social influence programs for smoking prevention in 16 middle schools, 1 that addressed cultural diversity and 1 that did not [22], [49]. Schools were located in Los Angeles County and were either majority Hispanic/Latino or had no single ethnicity in the majority but at least 35% Hispanic/Latino or Asian-American. The curricula were implemented in sixth grade classrooms in April and May 2001. Analysis comparing participating schools with
Results
Table 2 provides a logistic regression of factors associated with the respondent’s susceptibility to smoking and smoking at follow-up. Baseline values on these variables are, not surprisingly, strongly associated with follow-up. Students who were susceptible or smoked in sixth grade were much more likely to do so in seventh grade. For example, susceptible students in sixth grade were 4.39 times more likely to be so in seventh grade. Similarly for smoking, students who smoked in sixth grade were
Discussion
Interpretation of these results must be qualified given the limited nature of this sample. All schools are located in southern California and the students were primarily Hispanic/Latino and Asian-American. These schools were purposely selected for their ethnic diversity, as required by the larger study of cultural influences on smoking. Further, we expect smoking prevalence to be high in these schools. Thus, inferences to the general US population are not warranted. In addition, this study was
Acknowledgment
Research for this article was supported by NCI grant # P50-CA84735-01 (Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center) and NIDA grant P50-DA16094 (Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center).
References (55)
- et al.
Social influences on health-risk behaviors among minority middle school students
J Adolesc Health
(2001) - et al.
Peer Influences on College DrinkingA Review of the Research
J Substance Abuse
(2001) - et al.
Adolescent smoking behaviorMeasures of social norms
Am J Preventive Med
(2003) - et al.
Peer networks and adolescent cigarette smokingAn analysis of the national longitudinal study of adolescent health
J Adolesc Health
(2001) - et al.
Ethnic differences in correlates of adolescent cigarette smoking
J Adolesc Health
(1998) - et al.
Girls, pecking order and smoking
Social Sci Med
(1997) Centrality in social networksconceptual clarification
Social Networks
(1979)- CDC MMWR. Youth tobacco surveillance—United States, 1998–1999. Available at: www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preveiw/. Accessed...