A SECONDARY ANALYSIS OF SMOKING AMONG RURAL AND URBAN YOUTH USING THEMTF DATA SET

This paper compared rural and urban youth cigarette-smoking behavior u sing the Monitoring the Future data set, a national, probability-based , multi-stage sample design. Cigarette smoking was examined by region, race, and gender over time. Results indicated that rural White males smoked more often (30-day prevalence of 34%) than any other group. Urb an Black males smoked the least (10%). Urban White females smoked more (30-day prevalence of 33%) than urban Black females (7%). In general, rural and urban Whites reported smoking at significantly higher rates than rural and urban Blacks. Smoking rates declined steadily for both rural and urban Black females and urban Black males over the study pe riod. These data document distinctive patterns of tobacco use among th e nation's youth, which can be used by program planners for specific t argeted interventions.