Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #118145

Chih-Ping Chou, PhD, Bin Xie, MD, and Lingyun Ji. Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, Unit 8, Alhambra, CA 91803, (626)457-6649, cchou@usc.edu

Taking advantage of the richness of cross-sequential public domain data on smoking in California, this study intends to investigate the intertwined relationships between trends of smoking and relevant risk factors among youth. Long-term trend of smoking is expected to be affected by three major components: age, birth cohort and period of measurement. Our earlier findings indicated that trend of adolescent smoking behaviors in California began to decline at the end of the past decade when statewide campaign on tobacco control and prevention has been started and reached full implementation. The purpose of this study is to investigate if similar trends can be observed for the risk factors associated with cigarette smoking. The study will also investigate the trends of the risk factors associated with smoking among youth. The Age-Period-Cohort (APC) statistical technique will be used to delineate and partition age, period and birth cohort patterns of secular trends in adolescent smoking. The variations of these components may offer more insightful information for future research and prevention efforts. For example, effect of birth cohorts can be instrumental to pinpoint an unusual pattern of cigarette use for a certain cohort. Effects of age on smoking behavior may ascertain the ages that youth are more vulnerable and to initiate smoking; while the effects of period may assist identifying critical policy changes. Further findings regarding trends in relevant risk factors can have strong implications for policy on the intensity, timing, and focus of tobacco use prevention programs.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the trends of smoking and associate risk factors among adolescent in California.
• Identify sources of impacts of age, period, and cohort effects on longitudinal trend of adolescent smoking behavior.
• Obtain better understanding of the intertwined relationships between smoking and related risk factors.

Keywords: Tobacco, Risk Factors

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.