Changing patterns of cigarette use among white and black youth, US 1976–2003

To help understand the decline, rise, and then decline again in rates of youth cigarette use over the past several decades, this study examines the changing influence of family background and social activities on individual propensities to smoke. Such changes may define different trends among youth at high or low risk of smoking and provide insights into the source of the fluctuations in the trends. After pooling cross-sectional surveys of samples of high school seniors from 1976 to 2003, we test for changes in the association of smoking with family background and social activities using logistic regression models that allow time of survey to interact with individual-level characteristics. The findings show little change in the influence of individual determinants among black youth, but white youth with highly educated parents and who go out frequently contribute most to the trends in smoking prevalence.