Instability in smoking patterns among school leavers in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Objective-To describe patterns of smoking in a cohort of young adults over the first 15 months after leaving school. Design-A four-wave, longitudinal survey design was used to gather data. Final-year students from 93 schools completed the recruitment questionnaire at an average age of 17 years. Follow-up questionnaires were posted to their home addresses three months, nine months and 15 months after the end of school. Setting-Victoria, Australia. Participants-A cohort of 1903 respondents who completed and returned all four questionnaires. Main outcome measures-Self-labelled smoking status ("heavy smoker", "light smoker", "occasional smoker", "exsmoker", and "non-smoker"), daily cigarette consumption, and maximum daily cigarette consumption. Results-At school, 72% of the sample were "non-smokers", 5% "ex-smokers", 11% "occasional", 8% "light", and 5% "heavy smokers". At 15 months after school, these proportions had shifted to 64%, 8%, 11%, 9%, and 7%, respectively. Over the study, "light smokers" and "heavy smokers" substantially increased their daily consumption; "occasional" and "ex-smokers" did not. There was relatively high stability in self-labelled smoking status at one wave and the next. However, over the four waves, 38% of the sample changed their self-labelled smoking status, and 41% of these had been "non-smokers" at school. A reduced second-order Markov chain model was found to fit this four-wave behavioural sequence. Detailed description of smoking status changes revealed greater progression to higher levels of smoking than transition to lower levels. Conclusions-There is considerable flux in smoking patterns among young adults after leaving school, suggesting an opportunity to intervene with smoking prevention programmes at this stage of development.

Occasional tobacco use among young adult women: a longitudinal analysis of smoking transitions

“…This proportion is higher than those found among general adult groups (10-18%) in other studies of occasional smoking, 3 5 7 9 but lower than that found among adolescents (45%). 3 In our study, 29% of baseline occasional smokers changed to daily smoking by survey 2 (when they were aged 22-27 years), and almost two-thirds of these daily smokers continued smoking daily at survey 3 (aged 25-30 years). There was little escalation in tobacco use between surveys 2 and 3, with only 5% of baseline occasional smokers becoming daily smokers.…”

“…1 2 It is a time when there are opportunities to prevent smoking and to promote cessation among those who may be amenable to quitting before they become committed smokers. 3 The tobacco industry also sees the passage to young adulthood as an opportune time-but for the adoption and consolidation of smoking habits. 4 Among adolescents and young adults, occasional smoking is often regarded as a transitional, experimental phase preceding daily smoking, and rates of occasional smoking are generally higher among younger adults than among older adults.…”

Teen Smokers Reach Their Mid Twenties

“…Smoking in the early and mid-teens predicts smoking at the age of 18 years after adjustment for family and demographic background [11]. However, there is also evidence of high levels of both cessation and relapse, suggesting that the course of adolescent smoking is not of a linear progression toward nicotine dependence or quitting [12,13]. Thus, short-term outcomes may not be an accurate guide to those in the medium to longer term.…”

Trends in sun protection behaviour among Australian young adults

“…A detailed description of sampling and procedure was published previously. 16 Here, we report on young adults' sun-protection behaviour during their first summer after finishing secondary school (1993/94; n=2,589), and their behaviour during the summers of 1994/95 (n=2,069) and 1996/97 (n=1,609). The samples included participants who did not have 'black skin or very dark skin'.…”