Parental and peer influence on adolescent smoking in Vietnam

Abstract

To estimate the magnitude of the association between parent and peer influences�on adolescent smoking as non-; light-; and heavy current smokers. By using data from 18,912 adolescents, ages from 13 to 15 years, from two years 2007 and 2014 of the�Global Youth Tobacco Survey in Vietnam, were selected for these analyses. Data�collected included measures for the smoking status of the adolescent and their�parents and friends. Descriptive analysis was used to describe the characteristics of�each individual variable. After that, the ordered logistic regression was applied to�estimate the relationship between smoking behaviour of parents and peer, with the�level of addiction of current smoking among school-going students. I also added up�other variables in the regression model as control variables to further examine the�association between the dependent and independent variables. Then, examine this�association by some subsample to observe the gender and age trends of these�relationships. This analysis confirmed that young people�were more likely to use cigarettes when their parents and friends smoked, the�status of current smoking here was at a light- and heavy- level as well. Especially,�the probability of smoking from the effect of friends' cigarette use was generally�higher compared to the effect of smoking of parents. In addition, there were�differences in influence from the smoking of parent and peer by groups of age and�gender of adolescents. The�influence of parent and peer were�increased when students became older from 13 to 15 years old. While gender-specific�influences were identified in the peer impacts on adolescent smoking for both boy�and girl; parental smoking only significantly associated with boy.