Patterns of adolescent smoking initiation rates by ethnicity and sex

Abstract

Objective-To define US national sex specific rates of smoking initiation among Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, and African American adolescents aged 12-17 years for each calendar year from 1940 through 1992. Methods-Adult survey data from the tobacco use supplement of the Current Population Survey in 1992-93 and 1995-96 were used to reconstruct the age at which individuals began to smoke and the calendar year in which they were that age. From these data, the number of individuals who began a calendar year as never smokers and who were aged 12-17 years during that year could be estimated and formed the denominator of the initiation rate. The number of these individuals who reported taking up smoking during that year formed the numerator of the initiation rate. Results-Initiation

Exposure to Tobacco Retail Outlets and Smoking Initiation among New York City Adolescents

“…15,16 African-American adolescents typically smoke at lower rates than their white and Hispanic peers. 17,18 Thus, including older adolescents and African-Americans within PoS studies is important for accurately estimating the strength of the relationship between exposure and key outcomes.…”

How the future of clinical cancer diagnostics can contribute to overcoming race-associated cancer disparities

“…As an example, African Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer and at a younger age compared to white or European Americans, even though as adolescents African Americans are less likely to smoke [2][3][4][5][6]; moreover, African Americans with lung cancer demonstrate shorter overall survival and increased mortality [6]. African American men have a 60% greater risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer and a two to three times greater risk of dying from the disease compared to white European American men [6,7].…”

Has there been a delay in the age of regular smoking onset among African Americans?

“…However, based on these and other research (3,(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18), it was evident that even larger sample sizes would have been beneficial in examining trends in African American smoking initiation over time. We examined differences between African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites in the incidence of initiation of regular smoking from 1970 to 1992, using data aggregated from the Current Population Surveys (CPS) (1992-1993, 1995-1996, 1998-1999) (19) to identify whether and when shifts occurred in smoking onset for both African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites.…”

“…A number of studies have identified a large decline during the 1980s in African American adolescent smoking, specifically among 12-to 17-year-olds and high school seniors (1)(2)(3)(4). However, it is not clear whether this decline reflected a delay in age of onset of regular smoking initiation rather than success in preventing initiation completely (5,6).…”

“…Large, cross-sectional surveys on adult smoking prevalence and age of smoking onset have previously been used to reconstruct smoking initiation rates (3,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15), with several studies pointing out that smoking initiation rates have decreased over time and are lower among African Americans than non-Hispanic Whites (3,10,(15)(16)(17). However, based on these and other research (3,(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18), it was evident that even larger sample sizes would have been beneficial in examining trends in African American smoking initiation over time.…”