Teenage smoking and antecedent parentalcharacteristics: A prospective study

Abstract

The smoking habits of 1445 white adolescents aged 15 to 17 years were examined in relation to 16 characteristics of the family prevailing at the time the mother was pregnant with the child. Five characteristics were independently associated with teenage smoking, either for boys or girls or both: parental smoking, mother's education and age, father's education and occupation. Multiple regression showed that father's occupation was redundant for both boys andgirls, and that mother's education was redundant for boys' smoking. Parental smoking, father's education and mother's age each had predictive power for boys' smoking. For the girls, mother's education also had predictive power. In general, the major family characteristics associated at birth with later teenage smoking are parental smoking habits and socioeconomic status. The sex differences between associations of family characteristics and teenage smoking suggest that the like-sexed parents' smoking and education have the greater effect on teenage smoking, particularly for the boys. For girls, present smoking status of mother was of more importance than mother's smoking status at birth if the mother had given up smoking.