Social Smoking by University of California. Part 2
This study examines smoking behaviors and trends among 670 University of California, Santa Cruz, undergraduate students in 13 sociology classes from 2003 to 2006. The brief survey, completed anonymously, asked students whether they smoked a tobacco cigarette in the previous year (light social smokers), month (monthly social), or day (daily), or more than 10 cigarettes in the previous day (heavy daily); whether they smoked the entire cigarette at one time or only part of it; and whether they smoked more, less, or the same as in the recent past (Appendix A). Students were asked similar questions about their parents’ smoking. The students sampled ranged in age from 18 to 43, with a mean age of 20.6 years; 27% were 18-19 years old, 53% were 20-21, 15% were 22-24, and 5% were over age 25. Nearly two-thirds were female. By residence, 95% were from California, evenly split between the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere.
Results
Contrary to expectations, UCSC students had significantly higher rates of smoking within the previous year than students in nationwide surveys or than their parents. However, two-thirds of smoking among UCSC students today is social rather than daily, compared to 60% of smoking by students nationally in 2004, half of student smoking in 1980, and just 16% of smoking by their parents.
Further, nearly half of UCSC’s social smokers, including 64% of occasional social smokers, report smoking only part of the cigarette when they smoke. Social smokers’ comments on surveys indicate that passing a cigarette around a group is a common practice. Large majorities of social smokers report that they smoke less today than in the past; only 5% report smoking more today. Heavier daily smokers show the opposite trend—nearly all say they smoke the entire cigarette, and 40% say their smoking has increased in recent years.
Student smoking even as late as college remains strongly and linearly related to whether their parents smoke. Students whose parents never smoked are nearly twice as likely to be nonsmokers themselves. Although two-thirds of the small number of students with social-smoking parents were social smokers themselves, parents’ smoking habits overall do not predict students’ social smoking. However, parents’ heavier daily smoking habits are strongly related to students’ daily — and, especially, heavy daily — smoking.
Compared to students with never-smoking parents, the few with parents who smoke heavily are nearly nine times more likely to be heavy daily smokers.