Smoking in Movies and Adolescent Smoking Initiation: A Longitudinal Study among Argentinian Adolescents

To assess whether exposure to movie smoking is associated with cigarette smoking among Argentinian adolescents.

A school-based longitudinal study involving 33 secondary schools in Argentina was performed. The sample included 2502 never smokers (average age at entry = 12.5 years), 1700 (67.9%) of whom completed follow-up surveys 17 months later. Exposure to the top 100 highest-grossing films for each year between 2009 and 2013 was assessed by content-coding films for tobacco and then by asking adolescents whether they had seen each of 50 titles, randomly selected from the larger pool, then parsing exposure into tertiles. Logistic regression models estimated aOR for the following transitions: nonsusceptible to susceptible never smoker, never smoker to ever smoker, and never smoker to current smoking (last 30 days).

At follow-up, 34.4% of nonsusceptible never smokers became susceptible, 24.1% reported having tried smoking, and 9.4% were current smokers. Most exposure to movie smoking was from US-produced films (average 60.3 minutes compared with only 3.4 minutes from Argentine films). Greater exposure to smoking in movies was significantly associated with increased odds of becoming susceptible (aOR_{first vs third tertile} 1.77, 95% CI 1.30-2.41), of trying smoking (aOR_{first vs third tertile} 1.54, 1.14-2.08), and marginally associated with current smoking (AOR_{first vs third tertile} 1.54, 0.99-2.40). Exposure to smoking in US- or Argentine-produced films had similar associations.

In Argentina, exposure to smoking in the movies predicted future smoking transitions among early adolescents, with most exposure coming from viewing US movies.