BLACK-WHITE DIFFERENCES IN CIGARETTE-SMOKING UPTAKE - PROGRESSION FROM ADOLESCENT EXPERIMENTATION TO REGULAR USE

Background. More U.S. adolescents and young adults have initiated ciga rette smoking in recent years. Blacks have been less likely than white s to start smoking, and the gap has widened recently. Reasons accounti ng for this large black-white difference remain unclear. Methods. A mu ltiple logistic regression analysis was performed using a cohort of 2, 467 adolescent smoking experimenters ages 11-18, within the 1989-1993 Teenage Attitudes and Practices Survey, a nationally representative su rvey. Results. Among experimenters (1989), 25.7% of whites and 10.3% o f blacks had progressed to current smoking (1993). The unadjusted odds ratio (OR) of progression for blacks (vs whites) was 0.33 [95% confid ence interval (CI) 0.23, 0.48]. Adjustment for factors significantly p redictive of progression (most parsimonious model) modified the black- white OR to 0.36 (CI 0.24, 0.55), while the full model yielded a black -white OR of 0.39 (CI 0.24, 0.66). Conclusions. The observed black-whi te difference in smoking progression was only partly explained by the factors evaluated, and some additional factor(s) must be important. Un derstanding the black-white difference in the progression from experim entation to current smoking may help prevent uptake among all adolesce nts. (C) 1998 American Health Foundation and Academic Press.