Citation
Manjothi, Naheed & Othuon, Lucas (2022). Influence of Educational Cues and Environmental Modifiers on Smoking Behaviour among Adolescents in the USA. Contemporary Journal of Education and Human Development. vol. 5 (4)Abstract
Smoking is one of the biggest public health concerns in the world, yet factors influencing smokingamongst adolescents has received little research attention. The purpose of this study was to show the
influence of educational cues and environmental modifiers on smoking behavior among adolescents
as conceptualized by the Health Belief Model. Use was made of a subset of the secondary data from
Wave I National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health, 1994-2008) in the
USA. A saturated sample of 6518 participants were included in the study. Quantitative data were
analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. Whereas a weak association was found
between educational cues and smoking behaviour, findings indicated that there was a strong
association between some environmental modifiers and smoking behaviour. In particular, the
relationship between learning about smoking in class and smoking behaviour of adolescents was
statistically significant (χ
2=5.906; Cramer V=.05, p=.01). However, the relationship was weak.
Parents smoking behaviour was also significantly related to children’s smoking behaviour. In
particular, the relationship between mothers’ and fathers’ smoking behaviour were significantly
related to their adolescent children’s smoking behaviour (χ
2=1143.9; Cramer V=0.69, p=.00 for
mothers and χ
2=16.39; Cramer V=.10, p=.00 for fathers). However, the study revealed a strong
relationship between mothers who smoked and their adolescent child’s subsequent choice to smoke,
with a Cramer V score of 0.69 (p=.00) with an odds ratio of 10.85 for adolescents who opted to
smoke and had mothers who smoked versus those who did not have mothers who smoked. This was
significantly higher when compared to an odds ratio of 1.1 for adolescents who opted to smoke and
had fathers who smoked. It is concluded that offering educational cues to adolescents about the risks
of smoking, and mothers’ smoking behaviour in particular, are important factors in modelling
adolescents’ smoking behaviour. The study further recommends that health intervention designers
should be cognizant of the wider social and environmental effects of cues and modifiers in their
design as suggested in the HBM, with some modifiers being particularly powerful in determining
behaviour than others; affective and physical proximity of modifiers being relevant considerations.
URL
https://sadipub.com/Journals/index.php/cjehd/article/view/38Keyword(s)
Smoking Behavior, Health Belief Model, Adolescent Health, Health Cues, Health EnvironmentalReference Type
Journal ArticleJournal Title
Contemporary Journal of Education and Human DevelopmentAuthor(s)
Manjothi, NaheedOthuon, Lucas