Education not enough to curb teenage smoking
New research from Leeds University indicates that early health education on its own is not enough to prevent teenagers taking up smoking.
The research finds that levels of teenage smoking are still “worryingly high” despite intensive early-years of education efforts
Health experts believe that smoking indirectly kills over 100,000 people a year in the UK and anti-smoking group ASH estimates that around 80 per cent of smokers first took up the habit as teenagers, making preventing teenagers starting smoking one of the major health priorities.
Smoking has risen up the political agenda with the successful banning of smoking in public places in Ireland. There are suggestions that Scotland might follow suit, and even hints that the next Labour manifesto may contain a promise to allow local authorities to act on smoking in public places.
Others, keen to avoid accusations of a “nanny state” are focussing instead on beefing up education in schools on the dangers of smoking.
Dr Mark Conner, of the Leeds University’s school of psychology, studied young people over a six-year period in an effort to establish whether education about the dangers of smoking had any effect.
An original study of 1,500 youngsters between 11 and 14 in the Leeds area was conducted in 1998, where it was found that pointing out the dangers of smoking to young people, and helping them consider how to say no to cigarettes, seemed to reduce the likelihood that they would smoke.
But, after returning to the same group of young people two years later it was found that those educated were just as likely to smoke as those who had been given no information.
In the latest study, Dr Conner used questionnaires, breath tests and saliva examinations to study 1134 young people aged 15-16, of whom 809 were in the previous group.
More than half of the 15-16-year-olds questioned (56 per cent) said they had not smoked in the past three months, compared with 75 per cent at age 13-14 and as many as 83 per cent in earlier sessions.
But by age 15 to 16, 31 per cent of girls and 16 per cent of boys were smoking regularly.
“From the results of our study, the pointers to someone in the first year of secondary school taking up smoking by the age of 15-16 are being a girl and having smoked when they were younger,” Dr Conner concluded.
He suggested that for health education to have an effect, it should be repeated at regular intervals, and is keen to conduct further research into why girls are more likely to smoke than boys.
