Objectives: To identify psychosocial factors that place adolescents at risk for participation in tobacco promotions, and to further investigate the hypothesis that psychosocial vulnerabilities have an indirect effect on smoking initiation among youth by way of involvement with tobacco promotions.
Methods: Data were from a follow-up telephone survey of youth in Massachusetts. A subset of adolescents who were not established smokers, had not smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days, and did not own a promotional item at baseline in 1993 was used for the analyses (n = 468). Bivariate analyses were used to evaluate the association between psychosocial vulnerabilities and subsequent acquisition of cigarette promotional items. Logistic regression was conducted to identify the set of factors that best predict attainment of tobacco promotional items, and to examine the mediating influence of item acquisition on the relation of between psychosocial vulnerabilities and smoking initiation.
Results: Adolescents who were academically disengaged at baseline were more likely to acquire a tobacco promotional item at follow-up. Academic disengagement was significantly associated with item acquisition, above and beyond the other psychosocial vulnerabilities. The direct effect of academic disengagement changed from marginally significant to nonsignificant when item acquisition was introduced.
Conclusions: This study provides evidence that receptivity to tobacco promotional items is greatest among youth who are disengaged from school.