Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10097153 | Preventive Medicine Reports | 2018 | 4 Pages |
Abstract
American students' 30-day smoking prevalence has decreased dramatically over the past two decades. The frequency of smoking within the 30-day measure has shifted from heavy smoking (>1/2â¯pack/day) toward light smoking (<1 to 5â¯cigarettes/day). 30-day prevalence thus understates the extent of the decline in youth smoking. To capture this shift toward less frequent smoking among the decreasing proportion of students who smoke, I develop a new index: the average number of cigarettes smoked per student per day (ACSD), using data from Monitoring the Future. To calculate ACSD I assign a specific number of cigarettes to each of 7 response options to the question, “How frequently have you smoked cigarettes during the past 30 days?” Response options range from “not at all” (assigned 0 cigarettes) to “two packs or more per day” (assigned 45 cigarettes). I then multiply these estimates by the proportion of students giving each response option. Summing across the 7 categories produces the ACSD for that survey year. I then compare time trends in 30-day prevalence and ACSD. From the mid-1990s to 2016, 30-day smoking prevalence among 12th graders declined 71.3%, while ACSD dropped 83.9% (pâ¯<â¯0.001). The figures were 84.0% and 90.6% (pâ¯<â¯0.001) for 10th graders and 87.4% and 89.0% for 8th graders (pâ¯<â¯0.05). Sensitivity analysis supports the finding that ACSD has decreased more than 30-day prevalence over time for both 10th and 12th grades. ACSD provides a new measure of the decline in youth smoking to complement the traditional measure of 30-day prevalence.
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Authors
Kenneth E. Warner,