Family example lifts teen smoking - survey

By THERESA GARNER

Smoking by parents, friends and older brothers and sisters has a significant effect on children picking up the habit.

If a teenager's best friend smokes, their chance of also being a smoker increases ten-fold, a survey by the anti-smoking group ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) has found.

The risk of becoming a daily smoker more than doubles for European students whose mothers or older siblings smoke.

Smoking by mothers influences teenager smoking more than that of fathers in all ethnic groups except Maori.

Parents can also influence their children by permitting smoking in the house.

ASH spokesman Dr Murray Laugesen said other factors influencing children were the association from birth between the smell of cigarettes with parental affection, and cigarettes being available or offered to children in smoking households.

When smoking is permitted inside the house, the risk of the student being a daily smoker doubles for Maori and Pacific Island students, and increases by 4.5 times for Asians, and 3.5 times for Europeans.

The annual survey of smoking among year 10 students shows that the number of teenagers smoking is continuing to decline, except among Maori girls.

One in three Maori girls smokes daily at year 10, and only 12 per cent of Maori girls have never smoked.

The survey of 30,000 14 and 15-year-olds shows that compared to two years earlier, daily smoking by girls decreased from 17 per cent to 15 per cent, and boys from 14 per cent to 10 per cent.

The reason for the decline is unclear, but likely factors include the 20 per cent increase in the price of cigarettes in 2000, and increased anti-smoking advertising, Dr Laugesen said.