Attitudes of Teenagers Towards Cigarettes and Smoking Initiation

Abstract

This paper contributes to the empirical knowledge of determinants of smoking initiation in adolescents. The instrument we used was a structural equation model, which is a powerful tool to analyze causal relationships in nonexperimental studies. We used a school-based sample of 1198 teenagers from Spain. We measured the attitude of the adolescents towards tobacco. Attitudes and smoking status are related. Attitudes become more favorable to smoking, as experimentation with cigarettes progresses and pupils become older. Teenagers who have tried at least one cigarette are on average more favorable to smoking than those who had never smoked. The study's limitations were noted.

Keywords:

• smoking initiation
• structural equation modeling
• young adolescents

Additional information

Notes on contributors

PATRICIA BARBER

Patricia Barber, Ph.D., is a professor of Quantitative Methods in Economics, University of Las Palmas de GC (Spain). Her teaching interests are in quantitative methods. Her fields of specialization are health care financing, human resources for health, and economics of substance use and abuse.

BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ LÓPEZ-VALCÁRCEL

Beatriz González López-Valcárcel, Ph.D., is a professor of Quantitative Methods in Economics, University of Las Palmas de GC (Spain). Her main research interest is health economics, particularly economics of smoking; use of drugs; health care financing; and human resources for health. She is the director of the Master's degree program in Health Economics and Health Care Management, University of Las Palmas. International consulting in Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mozambique. More information in http://beavalcarcel.com/Bea.

JAIME PINILLA

Jaime Pinilla, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Las Palmas. He is an Industrial Engineer, specializing in Industrial Organization, and has a Ph.D. in Economics.

YOLANDA SANTANA

Yolanda Santana, Ph.D., in Economics. Her main areas of research are a) Dynamic econometrics. Special reference to the autorregresive conditional heter oskedasticity models; and b) Financial econometrics. CAPM and APT models.

JOSÉ RAMÓN CALVO

José Ramón Calvo, M.D., Ph.D., is Full Professor of Health Education and Director of Health Education and Promotion Institute. His areas of interest include tobacco control, advertising, and health promotion.

ANSELMO LÓPEZ

Anselmo López Cabañas, M.D., M.S.C., Ph.D., is now working as a public health technician for the Canary Health Service in Primary Health Care. He has done epidemiological research on tobacco use in different groups: general population, health workers, and young people. He is a member of the Education and Health Promotion Group of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. At present he is doing some research on other fields such as the use of health services and drugs.