Ethnicity, gender and risk factors for smoking initiation: An overview

Abstract

Although the prevalence of cigarette smoking has increased dramatically among youth over the past several years, there are significant ethnic and gender differences in prevalence rates. This paper presents highlights of the research literature on ethnic and gender differences in risk factors for smoking. The effects of peer and family influences may vary by both ethnicity and gender. White youth, especially females, may be more susceptible to the negative influence of friends' smoking than are African-American youth. Although the evidence about the relative importance of parent smoking among ethnic groups is contradictory, recent data suggest that African-American parents provide stronger anti-smoking messages than do white parents. The subgroups also vary in their perceptions of the negative consequences of smoking, with Asian-American and African-American females perceiving stronger negative consequences. Cultural expectations may place white females at increased risk for smoking. The link between depressed mood and smoking also varies by subgroup. Finally, popular media figures may influence the appeal of smoking and be differentially relevant to youth subgroups. We need: (1) specific examinations of ethnic and gender effects with attention paid to identifying protective factors among certain ethnic/gender subgroups; (2) to know more about how family influences may vary by the ethnic/gender subgroups and over the developmental course of smoking; (3) to know more about how youth cope with negative moods and the role of smoking in coping; and (4) to investigate whether the factors that protect youth in some subgroups can be diffused to others.

Perceived smoking environment and smoking initiation among multi-ethnic urban girls

“…This increased awareness may extend to smoking behaviors, making the perceived smoking environment a stronger predictor of girls' smoking than boys' [26 -29]. However, the few studies that have examined this hypothesis among multi-ethnic youth found that the increased vulnerability to the perceived environment was observed among white girls and not girls from other racial/ethnic groups [15,30].…”

Environmental and Genomic Factors as well as Interventions Influencing Smoking Cessation: A Systematic Review of Reviews and a Proposed Working Model

“…Environmental factors are also modified by ethnicity; this is, e.g. the case for tobacco use, perception of health risk, or social unacceptability [132]. However, in non-genomic studies, ethnicity is usually not considered as a factor of interest; either mixed ethnicities are used or there is no information on it.…”

Assessing demographic differences in decisional balance for smoking prevention and temptations to try smoking among adolescent subgroups

“…Similarly to race and ethnicity, the role of gender in smoking initiation in adolescence has produced inconclusive results 1,10,14,15 . A number of studies have identified being male as a risk factor for smoking initiation 10,14,15 while other studies have found that being female was associated with higher prevalence for this behavior 2,4 . The 2014 Surgeon General Report found no gender differences in adolescent cigarette smoking initiation 1 .…”

“…This statistical inference method is used to determine whether or not an effect exists between a set of variables based on an alpha cut-off value (e.g. p < .05) [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] . However, alpha is highly influenced by large samples and likely to produce significant differences between variables, even if such differences are negligible 21,22 .…”