Adolescents still confused about the risks of smoking

  Parents Should Continue to Explain Potential Health Problems

While 400,000 adults die of smoking-related illnesses every year, young people ignore the warnings and still continue to start smoking cigarettes. In fact, 90% of all adult smokers start before age 20. And, of those who start when they are teenagers, an estimated 33% will eventually die from smoking-related causes.

So, with all this information available, why hasn’t the message about the risks and dangers of smoking reached our children and young adults? A report in the Journal of Adolescent Health (Vol. 29, No. 1: 12-21, 2001) may provide some clues to help answer the question.

In their study, Daniel Romer, PhD, and Patrick Jamieson, MSEd, from the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, surveyed 300 smokers and 300 non-smokers between the ages of 14 and 22. They examined three different issues in an effort to understand why young people continue to smoke, despite the overwhelming evidence that smoking is dangerous.

The researchers asked three questions: Do young people understand the extent of the risk? How do they view the effect of cigarette smoking on their own health and survival? Does their understanding of the effect of smoking on their own health have an effect on their own willingness to quit smoking?

Teens Underestimate Risk

The results of the interviews, which included responses from a cross-section of teens and adolescents from various parts of the country and from representative ethnic groups, indicated that young people overestimated the true risk of developing lung cancer during their lifetime (a 59% estimated chance by teens compared to 20% current estimates, according to the authors).

However, they underestimated the fatality rate of lung cancer once it is diagnosed (67% estimate by teens compared to the 86% current estimate). Teens interviewed underestimated the percentage of smokers at 41% who eventually will die as a result of their habit (authors current estimate is 50%).

According to the authors, large proportions of young smokers viewed their own smoking as less than “very risky for their health” no matter how high they perceived their chances of dying from smoking. On a somewhat more positive note, 81% of the smokers reported plans to quit. However, caution the authors, it is apparent that while young people underestimate their own risk of smoking, they also overestimate how easy it is to quit smoking.
So what should be done to get the message across to young people that smoking is very dangerous to their health? The authors note that the cigarette industry argues that smokers “knew the risk when they opted to smoke (and)…that they had an accurate assessment of its consequences at the time.” The study concludes, “These findings underscore the need to continue to educate both young and older people about the risks of smoking so that they can adequately assess the risks to themselves.”

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