Does Watching Smoking in Movies Promote Teenage Smoking?

Abstract

Compared to adolescents with low exposure to smoking in movies, those with high exposure are about three times as likely to try smoking or become smokers. We have observed this effect in nationally representative samples using cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. This effect remains statistically significant after controlling for numerous other traditional risk factors, such as personality, parenting style, and sociodemographics. Indeed, the movie-smoking exposure effect on adolescent smoking initiation is greatest among those traditionally considered at lower risk for smoking, such as those low in sensation seeking and those whose parents do not smoke. In this article, we consider possible moderators and mediators of this important media effect as well as health-policy implications. The take-home message is that eliminating smoking in movies may prevent a substantial number of adolescents from smoking.

Figures

Fig. 1

Proportion of adolescents aged 10 to 14 who tried smoking as a function of exposure to movie smoking (amount of exposure broken down by quartile). The sample consisted of 4,538 U.S. adolescents who were never smokers at baseline and who were surveyed 16 months later on their tobacco use (unpublished data).

Fig. 2

Effect of sensation seeking on the effect of exposure to movie smoking. The black line reflects the established smoking hazard ratio (risk of becoming an established smoker during the study) as sensation seeking varies. Sensation seeking is scaled so that 0 equals the 5th percentile and 1 equals the 95th percentile for the distribution. The hazard ratio is adjusted for other media variables (movie-viewing venues, movies viewed in the past week, movies viewed with parents), social and other environmental influences (friend smoking, sibling smoking, parent smoking, poor school performance, parental style, extracurricular activities), and characteristics of the adolescent (age, sex, parent education, race, tried smoking at baseline, and rebelliousness). (adapted from Sargent, Stoolmiller, et al., 2007).