First tobacco product tried among adolescents based on race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status

Abstract

In recent years, the tobacco use landscape among youth has changed greatly, underscoring a need to understand current tobacco product initiation patterns. This study aimed to examine if adolescents’ first tobacco product tried differs by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES). Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 6 Connecticut high schools in Spring 2019 (N = 4875). The analytic sample comprised ever users of tobacco products who reported on the first tobacco product they tried (N = 2530; 53.6% female). Of ever tobacco product users, 64.6% reported that their first tobacco product tried was an e-cigarette, 24.4% reported blunts, 6.5% reported another tobacco product, and 4.5% reported cigarettes. A multinomial logistic regression model examined race/ethnicity and SES as predictors of the first tobacco product tried with cigarettes as the reference group. Compared to Non-Hispanic (NH) White students, NH Black students (OR = 0.38, 95%CI = 0.17–0.82), Hispanic students (OR = 0.44, 95%CI = 0.27–0.71), and students of other NH races (OR = 0.30, 95%CI = 0.18–0.52) were less likely to report initiating tobacco product use with e-cigarettes. Additionally, compared to NH White students, NH Black students were more likely to report using blunts as their first tobacco product (OR = 3.01, 95%CI = 1.38–6.56). Compared to low SES, middle SES (OR = 1.62, 95%CI = 1.04–2.52) was associated with greater odds of reporting e-cigarettes as the first tobacco product. These findings suggest that youth of different backgrounds initiate tobacco use with different tobacco products and tailored prevention strategies are needed.