The Protective Influence of Family Bonding on Smoking Initiation in Adolescents by Racial/Ethnic and Age Subgroups

Abstract

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined the associations among family bonding factors and the initiation of smoking by race/ethnicity and age group among nonsmokers at Wave 1. Overall, 18% of the sample initiated smoking by Wave 2. For younger African-American and Hispanic youths, high maternal satisfaction with the relationship was significantly protective of smoking initiation. For older Hispanics, high parental presence and high parent-family connectedness were protective against smoking initiation, while lack of awareness about the adolescent's whereabouts was a risk factor for initiation in both younger and older Caucasians, and in the older Hispanics. Our results underscore the importance of maintaining high levels of family bonding with the adolescent throughout early and late adolescence in order to decrease tobacco initiation.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescence
• ethnicity
• parental influence
• race
• smoking initiation

Acknowledgments

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524, USA. E-mail: [email protected].

This work was supported by grant K23CA117864 to the first author from the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health.

Notes

^a Poverty: Defined as answering “yes” to the question “Are you receiving public assistance, such as welfare?”. Boldface indicates significant values at p < 0.05.

^a Each cell contains the raw number and weighted percentage of initiators.

^b At the Time 2 interview.

^c Maternal satisfaction = maternal satisfaction with the mother-adolescent relationship.

^†Non-Hispanic.

Boldface indicates significant values at p < 0.05.

^a The odds ratios have been adjusted for gender, age, poverty status, and family structure.

^b Parent-family connectedness and parental presence were analyzed as tertiles and all other variables were dichotomized for analysis.

‡p ≤ .001 §p < .01 ∥p < .05.

Boldface indicates significant values at p < 0.05.