MONDAY, Feb. 3, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- Teens who aren't interested in school, along with those whose parents smoke, are more likely to accept a tobacco promotional item.
And researchers already know that accepting these promotional items -- T-shirts or other attire emblazoned with cigarette brand names -- raises the risk that teens will become smokers.
Researchers from Boston University and the University of Massachusetts at Boston polled 467 teens, aged 12 to 15, who had not smoked in the past 30 days and did not have any tobacco promotional items, and then interviewed them again four years later.
They asked whether their parents smoked, how much they liked school, whether they were rebellious, and whether they were depressed, among other questions.
At the four-year follow-up, 71 of the children had acquired a promotional item and 396 had not. Then the researchers looked for associations.
"Kids who scored high on academic disengagement [those who said they were disinterested in school] were two times as likely to own promotional items," says study co-author Lois Biener, a senior researcher at the Center for Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
The children of smokers were also three times more likely to accept the promotional items, the researchers found.
The study appears in the February issue of Pediatrics.
Previous research has found that teens who accept promotional items are more likely to smoke. For the new study, the researchers wanted to find out what factors would make a teen more likely to accept a promotional item.
Why does disinterest in school drive the desire for promotional items?
"I think we are picking up on kids who don't see a place for themselves at school," Biener says. "They are not hooking in to the social circles at school. And they are looking for some kind of identity for themselves. Being attracted to a T-shirt with a Marlboro sign on it offers them a particular kind of identity. That's our supposition."
At the four-year follow-up, 45 percent of the teens who owned a promotional item had become smokers, while only 15 percent of those who did not had become smokers.
Dr. David Baron, chairman of the department of family practice at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, says the study "makes a case for protecting kids from tobacco advertising and promotion."
The study results may help the creators of teen smoking prevention programs to fine-tune their approach, he says. If you know that kids who are bored at school accept promotional items, he says, you want to find ways for kids to avoid that boredom.
"That's where the study is strong," Baron says. "It continues to make the case that primary prevention is where it's at. You stop kids from becoming smokers."
For parents, Biener says, "it's important to be aware of your kids' need to define themselves. They need to find a group they can feel comfortable with. Kids involved in organized after-school activities are less likely to smoke."
Baron also believes that family doctors should do more to help spread the anti-smoking message. About five years ago, he headed a campaign, urging fellow doctors in the community to follow his lead and refuse to keep magazines that carry tobacco advertisements in the waiting room.
More information
To learn more about how to help teens avoid tobacco, see the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Tobacco Information and Prevention Source or the American Lung Association's Teens Against Tobacco Use.
