Children whose parents smoke cigarettes are at high risk for early initiation of smoking, and those who initiate smoking during childhood are at high risk for subsequent addiction to tobacco. Few programs are available that aim to prevent initiation of cigarette smoking during childhood, and none is available that aims to prevent early initiation by engaging parents who smoke in altering children's smoking-specific socialization. This project tests an innovative program to change smoking-specific socialization of children in households where parents smoke cigarettes. This continuation application requests one additional year of support for this research.
Aim l: Develop an anti-smoking socialization program for parents who smoke. Through communication, modeling, rule setting, monitoring, and other socialization practices, parents influence their children's perceptions of the prevalence of smoking, the acceptability of smoking, the accessibility of cigarettes, and many other aspects of smoking. The premise of this research is that all parents, including parents who smoke, can engage in anti-smoking socialization, and that anti-smoking socialization can lower children's risk of smoking. Barriers to anti-smoking socialization include the misperception by parents that initiation of smoking is uncommon during childhood and the strong belief among parents who smoke that they lack credibility as sources of anti-smoking socialization. The program developed for this project addresses these and other barriers to involvement by parents who smoke in preventing their children from smoking.
Aim 2 : Using a 2-group randomized design, test the effects of anti-smoking socialization on children's susceptibility to and initiation of cigarette smoking. Sample: To date, this study has enrolled 813 mother-child pairs, where mothers were biological mothers, stepmothers, or other adult female guardians, from single- or 2-parent households, who reported smoking at baseline and whose children were in the 3rd grade at baseline. Design: Eligible participants who completed the baseline survey were randomly assigned to the treatment (n = 408) or control (n = 405) condition. Data on program implementation and impact have been obtained from mothers using telephone interviews administered 1 month post-treatment. Interviews administered to children 12, 24, and 36 months post-baseline will be used to assess program effects. Hypotheses: Children exposed to a program of anti-smoking socialization by mothers who smoke will be less susceptible to and report less initiation of smoking than unexposed peers. Analyses: A latent transition model will test the effects of anti-smoking socialization on children's susceptibility to cigarette smoking. Survival analysis will test the effects of anti-smoking socialization on children's initiation of smoking.
| Jackson, Christine; Dickinson, Denise (2006) Enabling parents who smoke to prevent their children from initiating smoking: results from a 3-year intervention evaluation. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 160:56-62 |
| Jackson, C; Dickinson, D (2003) Can parents who smoke socialise their children against smoking? Results from the Smoke-free Kids intervention trial. Tob Control 12:52-9 |
