Social influences on use of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and hookah by college students

ABSTRACT

Objectives: (1) Compare social norms and perceived peer use between college student cigarette, e-cigarette, and/or hookah users and nonusers; and (2) determine variables associated with social influences. Participants: Undergraduate students attending a large university in the Southeast United States (N = 511). Methods: An April 2013 online survey assessed use of 3 types of tobacco, social norms, perception of peer use, number of smokers in life, exposure to secondhand smoke, and demographic characteristics. Results: Participants indicated greater acceptance of emerging tobacco products than for cigarettes and consistently overestimated the percent of peers who use various tobacco products. Males and current users had higher social norm scores for all 3 forms of tobacco. Conclusion: To counter marketing of alternative tobacco products, education about the dangers of their use needs to be implemented across college campuses as part of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy that also includes tobacco-free campus policies.

KEYWORDS:

• College students
• social influences
• tobacco prevention

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of University of Kentucky.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the George and Betty Blanda Endowed Professorship awarded to Dr Noland for providing the incentives for this study.

Funding

The project described was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH), through grant number UL1TR000117. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.