Preventing uptake of smoking

Abstract

Patterns of smoking in families and social pressure from peers have been considered as the principal determinants of the uptake of smoking by teenagers. Thus the chief focus of much of the health promotion effort to produce a new, smoke-free generation has been to equip adolescents with detailed knowledge about the dangers of smoking and skills to resist cigarettes offered by other teenagers. However, there is mounting evidence from Australia and parts of North America that systematic, sophisticated, and sustained tobacco control policies not only succeed in reducing the prevalence of smoking among adults, they also change norms and decrease the uptake of smoking in adolescence. © 2008 Copyright © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.