Changes in smoking behaviours from late childhood to adolescence: 4 years later

Abstract

The purpose of this short report is to estimate trajectories documenting changes in the frequency of cigarette smoking between 10–11 and 20–21 years of age for 3959 participants to the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. This study is a follow up to Maggi, Hertzman, and Vaillancourt [Maggi, S., Hertzman, C., Vaillancourt, T., 2007. Changes in smoking behaviours from late childhood to adolescence: insights from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. Health Psychol. 26, 232–240] who found that there are five distinct trajectories of acquisition of smoking from 10–11 to 16–17 years of age. While findings from this study replicate those reported in Maggi, Hertzman, and Vaillancourt [Maggi, S., Hertzman, C., Vaillancourt, T., 2007. Changes in smoking behaviours from late childhood to adolescence: insights from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. Health Psychol. 26, 232–240], they provide a more accurate representation of the possible outcomes of the smoking acquisition process by indicating what specific trajectories of experimentation may lead to daily smoking, occasional smoking or non-smoking.