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The proposed study is designed to identify predictors of three stages of cigarette smoking (Trying, Experimentation, and Regular Use) in Mexican American boys and girls. Seven predictors will be evaluated: (a) social environ-ment (e.g., smoking modeling by adults, peers, common beliefs of smoking prevalence); (b) intrapersonal characteristics (e.g., expectat-ions about smoking and stereotypes about smokers); (c) knowledge about health effects of cigarette smoking; (d) attitudes (e.g., expectations about smoking and stereotypes about smokers); (e) common beliefs about cigarette smoking (i.e., beliefs of important others regarding cigarette smoking); (f) intentions to try, experiment, or smoke cigarettes; and (g) previous or current use of cigarettes, alcoholic-beverages, marijuana, or other drugs. These predictors were chosen because they have shown promise in previous studies of cigarette smoking initiation and in general can be addressed through short-term prevention programs.
This study targets the largest group of Hispanics in the United States: Mexican Americans. The lack of specific information on predictors of cigarette smoking among this group of ethnic minority youths makes it difficult to design appropriate interventions. The study proposed here will fill those gaps in information.
The study includes 1,200 Mexican American boys and girls aged 10-17 years. Children will be selected randomly from residents in the San Francisco Bay area and will be interviewed in their homes. The parent(s) of the children will also be interviewed at the same time as the youth. The study will utilize culturally appropriate measures that will be filled out by each child in the presence of the interviewer. All children will be asked to give a sample of saliva as a way of validating responses regarding amount of cigarettes smoked. All instruments will be available in English or Spanish. |
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The study was designed to identify predictors of each of three stages of cigarette smoking behavior (Trying, Experimentation, and Regular Use) in Latino boys and girls. Seven predictors were evaluated: (a) social environment (e.g., smoking modeling by adults, peers, normative beliefs of smoking prevalence); (b) intrapersonal characteristics (e.g., depression, risk taking); (c) knowledge about health effects of cigarette smoking; (d) attitudes (e.g., expectations about smoking and stereotypes about smokers); (e) normative beliefs about cigarette smoking (i.e., beliefs of important others regarding cigarette smoking); (f) intentions to try, experiment, or smoke cigarettes; and (g) previous or current use of cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, marihuana, or other substances.
In the initial stage, our research group completed the questionnaire development and pretesting phase of the project. In order to include culturally relevant questions regarding cigarette smoking (e.g., attitudes, norms, and expectancies), open-ended interviews with 24 Hispanic adolescents and 20 non-Hispanic White adolescents were conducted. Responses were content analyzed in order to develop closed-ended items for the large-scale survey. The final structured surveys for the adolescents and their parents/guardians were pre-tested and translated.
The second phase of our project started in November of 1999. This phase included a telephone survey of Hispanic boys and girls (10-17 years of age) and their parents or guardians who live in the same household. Potential participants were selected from the telephone directories within counties in the San Francisco Bay area (e.g., San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, and Santa Clara counties). Spanish-surnamed families were called and those with children within the target age range were invited to participate in the study. In each household a child and one parent or guardian were interviewed. Respondents were given a choice of the language (Spanish or English) in which they wished to respond. Each family was compensated $20.00 for their participation.
As part of the study, we completed 2,206 interviews (1,103 Latino youths and 1,103 parents or guardians). As proposed in the second grant from TRDRP, we expect to re-interview each youth and the parent/guardian between 2000 and 2001. The survey instruments will be similar to the ones used in the first wave in order to guarantee comparability in responses and in the data. These comparisons will be of particular significance in allowing us to look at predictors of cigarette smoking in a short longitudinal analysis. The data from this study provide important indicators to be used in the design of culturally-appropriate tobacco prevention strategies for Latino youth. |
