Are private school students more likely to smoke than public school students in China?

Full Abstract

BACKGROUND:
Tobacco use is prevalent among adolescents in China in general, however, little is known about tobacco use among students in private schools with an enrollment of 1.5 million.

METHOD:
In 2001, cross-sectional survey data from 2725 students in grades seven and eight (1307 sampled from private schools and 1418 sampled from public schools) were included. Smoking measures (risk of susceptibility to smoking, smoking onset, ever smoking, smoking in the past 7 days and past 30 days, established smoking) were compared between private and public school students using chi-square test, logistic regression, and survival analysis.

RESULTS:
Cigarette smoking was more prevalent among private school students than among public school students (private vs. public:
21.9% vs. 12.3% for susceptibility to smoking, 53.9% vs. 38.2% for ever smoking, 22% vs. 12.0% for 30-day smoking, 15.9% vs. 4.0% for 7-day smoking, 4.5% vs. 1.2% for established smoking). Students in private schools are 3.4 to 3.8 times more likely to smoke than students in public schools after the adjustment of important covariates (gender, grade, peer smoking, parental smoking, and parents' occupation). Risk of smoking onset by age was also greater for private school students than for public school students.

CONCLUSIONS:
Being in private schools was associated with three to four times increases in the likelihood of current cigarette smoking and heightened risk of smoking onset by age. Findings from this study suggest the urgent need to collect additional data on risk and protective factors as well as the willingness to participate in effective tobacco use intervention prevention among private school students.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Gong, J (J); Chen, X (X); Guo, Q (Q); Zhou, D (D); Palmer, P H (PH); Zhang, D (D); Liu, C (C); Xia, J (J); Johnson, C A (CA);

Affiliation: Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 24 N. Jianghan Road, Wuhan 430022, China. xxzhg(-atsign-)public.wh.hb.cn

Grants: P50 CA84735-01 (Agency:NCI NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Preventive medicine (Prev Med), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Aug; vol 43 (issue 2) : pp 117-21

Dates: Created 2006/08/14; Completed 2006/12/07; Revised 2007/12/03;

PMID: 16675006, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Female
Humans
Male
Schools
Smoking - epidemiology; prevention & control
Social Environment
Students - statistics & numerical data

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.