Parental prompting and smoking among Latino youth

Our previous research indicated that Latino parents, more so than non-Latino parents, may prompt their children to engage in behaviors that encourage them to "practice" smoking-related behaviors. The present study examined Latino and non-Latino adolescents' reports of parental prompting, defined as parental requests to: 1) empty/clean ashtrays; 2) bring cigarettes to parent; 3) accept tobacco industry promotional gear as a gift; 4) buy cigarettes for parent; 5) light parent's cigarette with a match or lighter; 6) start the cigarette in his/her own mouth and then pass it to parent; and 7) smoke with the parent.

In 10 schools in the Southbay area of San Diego, 3,599 7th and 8th grade middle school students, the majority of whom were Latino, completed cross-sectional surveys assessing 7 parental prompts, past-month smoking, parental smoking, acculturation, and familism.

Findings indicated that parental prompts were less prevalent than in our previous work. We also found that there were not consistent or great differences in the prevalence of prompting between Latinos and non-Latinos and that parental prompting, particularly requests that the child light the parent's cigarettes with a match or lighter, was associated with children's smoking. Further, we found that Latino adolescents may be influenced by more parental prompts than non-Latinos, and finally that higher familism scores were significantly associated with lower risk of smoking, regardless of ethnicity.

Parental prompting and familism appear to be important correlates of adolescent smoking.