Four Million Teenagers Smoke... Or Do They?

Copyright 1998 PR Newswire, Inc.
August 10, 1998


DALLAS, Aug. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- President Clinton announced the first national initiative to reduce smoking by adolescents in August 1996. During his initiative kickoff Clinton, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and FDA Commissioner David Kessler reported that "four million adolescents smoke." Kessler continued, "Nicotine addiction is a pediatric disease that often begins at 12, 13, and 14 only to manifest itself at 16 and 17 when these children find that they cannot quit."

In a paper presented August 12 at the JOINT STATISTICAL MEETINGS, now underway in Dallas, TX, Mary Grace Kovar of the National Opinion Research Center states that this estimate, based on data from the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse, may be misleading. According to Kovar, "The numbers are fine. The problem is that they don't mean what many listeners, and perhaps some of the speakers, assume they do."

Nearly 14,000 adolescents ages 12-17 were interviewed during 1994-96. The question on which the four million estimate is based is, "Have you smoked a cigarette (at least a puff or more) in the past 30 days?" Data from the survey indicates an estimated 4.2 million adolescents smoke, but Kovar says other questions on the survey enabled us to investigate how much these teenagers really smoked. Approximately 25 percent were "heavy" smokers -- they smoked 20 or more days out of the past 30 and smoked a half a pack of cigarettes or more on the days when they smoked. At the other end of the scale, 31 percent smoked fewer than 20 days and they smoked less than one cigarette on the days when they smoked. In the middle were 38 percent who smoked 20 days or more and 1-5 cigarettes. It is also worth noting that 22 percent who had smoked in the 30 days had smoked no more than 1-2 days in their lifetime.

The data are important, Kovar says, because the federal government, in tracking the new regulations, won't know what it means if they find a reduction in the proportion of adolescents defined as smokers. If there is a 10 percent reduction, it makes a big difference whether fewer children are taking an experimental puff or fewer teenagers are smoking regularly. The former may never have another cigarette; the latter are definitely risking their health and there is a high probability that they will continue smoking in adulthood.

"Trying a cigarette is not equivalent to being a smoker, and it is unfair to adolescents to treat them as if it were. Further, it does not lead to good public policy and it makes careful monitoring of the effect of the policy impossible. Policy should be based on good data," Kovar says.

The JOINT STATISTICAL MEETINGS (August 9-13, 1998, in Dallas) -- the largest annual statistical conference in North America -- are sponsored by the American Statistical Association; the International Biometric Society, Eastern and Western North American Regions; the Institute of Mathematical Statistics; and the Statistical Society of Canada. The meetings draw nearly 4,000 statisticians and other scientists who serve in academia, government, and private industry from around the world.

SOURCE: American Statistics Association
CONTACT: Jane E. Swartzloff or Elizabeth Vittori, both of
American Statistical Association Press Room, Wyndham Anatole,
Opal Room, 214-761-2998

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