DON BOSCO TECHNICAL INSTITUTE OF MAKATI

Junior High School Department

Aquino, Michael Brian

Barrios, Patrick Sheldon

Bartolome, Paul Benedict

Estrella, Mark Angelo

Tumbaga, John Gabriel

10 – Artemide Zatti

Smoking Among Minors: A Study on the Different Causes of Smoking at a Young Age as

perceived by Grade 10 Bosconians

Carreras Valerio , Milagros

Junior High School Faculty

Date of Submission
03/15/2020

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

 CAUSES OF SMOKING AT A YOUNG AGE 2

Smoking is the absolute most significant preventable cause of death. Globally,

smoking is still on the rise among teenagers and has been considered a true drug addiction all

over the world. Every day, about 4000 children start smoking whereas 1500 of the

adolescents aged below 18 years are regular smokers (Dusenbury & Kerner 1992). Thus,

smoking among the youth is known to be caused by many different reasons. This section of

the research paper presents the studies that are found related to the study being conducted.

Sociodemographic Factors

The factors summarized included age; gender; parental socioeconomic status

and rural/urban residence (Klausner, 2011). In certain studies, it was difficult to isolate these

factors in light of the fact that there are collinear relationships between such variables such as

family size, and educational level of parents.

Initiation and prevalence of smoking among adolescents typically rise with

increasing age and grade (Wang & Yu 1994). Adolescents who at early age become aware

and learn to smoke will have a greater risk of becoming regular smokers as they grow older

(Shaw, 2018) and less likely to quit smoking (Breslau & Peterson 1996).

Although historically the prevalence of smoking was lower among women

than men, data gathered for the past decade have revealed that the rates of current smoking

and initiation to smoking were approximately equal for the two groups, at least in North

America (Greaves, 1987). For teenagers, however, according to the American Lung

Association, it was reported that smoking rates among girls were higher than for boys in

some studies from the 1980s, with conflicting accounts in other reports of no gender

differences.

Higher levels of socioeconomic variables, such as school and a family’s social

class, have often been found to be oppositely related to smoking in adolescents. Diverse

studies that have reported insignificant effects of parental education on teenager smoking
 CAUSES OF SMOKING AT A YOUNG AGE 3

have examined parental education only (Gfellner, 1994) or have not found maternal but

patrilinear education to be insignificant (Chen & Pederson 1992). However, maternal

education has been a weaker casual factor of household socioeconomic status compared to

paternal education (Tushar, 2016).

Comparatively few studies included means of urban or rural status and the

results of these studies were not consistent. A larger amount of prevalence of smoking was

linked with residence in a rural, tobacco-producing area in the US (Noland & Kryscio 1990)

and urban residence in Sri Lanka (Mendis, 1990). Thorlindsson and Vilhjalmsson (1991)

found a decrease in smoking by adolescents living in a province, but an increase in those

living in a more developed area, mostly by adolescents.

Environmental Factors

Early studies demonstrate the importance of parental and peer smoking as risk

factors in the environment that continuously influence the initiation of adolescents to smoke

(Hanes, 2017). Apart from that, the availability and the ability of adolescents to easily acquire

cigarettes is also a factor that could greatly impact smoking among adolescents.

Attitudes of parents towards smoking have been shown to be greatly related to

adolescent smoking. For example, Dr. Fauzia Khurshid (2002) found that 13-14 year old

students who are aware of their parents smoking increased the likelihood of smoking among

their age group because their curiosity tends to follow actions that they see their parents

doing. Similar results were found by Lantz (2003) from her prevention strategies on teen

smoking.

Findings with regard to peer smoking was consistently discovered to

be directly related to adolescent smoking initiation (Gentzke, 2019). The influence of peers

has been noted to have a greater relation to adolescent smoking compared to parental

influence (Harvey, 2016). However, this peer influence of smoking initiation may be
 CAUSES OF SMOKING AT A YOUNG AGE 4

modified by a group’s membership. According to Ennet (1993), social isolates were more

likely seen to become smokers because of conformity to join a certain group.

The last environmental factor to be discussed in this section is the availability

and the accessibility of cigarettes or tobacco. Even though laws have been passed on the

underage purchasing and possession of tobacco products, minors are still able to acquire

cigarettes and other tobacco products through directly purchasing (Difranza, 2005), through

older family members or friends who influence them in to smoking, or by stealing from

adults or even their parents who they know is smoking (Chaloupka, 2000). Although the

factor of accessibility and availability is important in the environmental factors, studies

reviewed has shown less compared to the other reasons cited on the initiation to smoke.
 CAUSES OF SMOKING AT A YOUNG AGE 5

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