Social Norms and Smoking Risk in iTaukei Fijian Adolescent Women

Margaret E Gerbasi; Stephen E Gilman; Asaf Bitton; Anne E Becker

doi:10.14485/HBPR.6.3.4

Social Norms and Smoking Risk in iTaukei Fijian Adolescent Women

Health Behav Policy Rev. 2019 May;6(3):242-255. doi: 10.14485/HBPR.6.3.4.

Authors

Margaret E Gerbasi¹, Stephen E Gilman², Asaf Bitton³, Anne E Becker¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
² Health Behavior Branch, Division of Intramural Population Health Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD.
³ Ariadne Labs, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the association of a variety of social smoking exposures with cigarette smoking among iTaukei adolescent women in Fiji.

Methods: Self-report data were collected in a representative sample of school-going iTaukei adolescent women (n=523). We fitted logistic regression models of current cigarette smoking with school, peer, media, and other social exposures to smoking as predictors.

Results: Current cigarette smoking was associated with exposure to close friend, peer, and routine social smoking as well as higher prevalence of school peer smoking, but not parent tobacco use and media smoking exposures-in our fully adjusted model.

Conclusions: Peer and school-based smoking exposures may increase cigarette smoking risk in school-going iTaukei adolescent women and may be strategic interventional targets to augment existing preventive approaches.

Keywords: Fiji; Tobacco; adolescents; peers; school-based.

Abstract

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