Original articleA Comparison of Peer Influence Measures as Predictors of Smoking Among Predominately Hispanic/Latino High School Adolescents
Section snippets
Data and Method
Survey data were collected from students attending seven predominately Hispanic/Latino high schools in the Los Angeles area in the fall of their 9th and 10th grade years in 2006 and October 2007. Some 3,218 students were invited to participate, and 2,420 (75%) provided parental consent and student assent. Of those, 2,221 (92%) completed the survey in the 9th grade. At 1-year follow-up (10th grade), 1,950 (87.8%) completed the survey, with 236 students no longer enrolled in the participating
Results
Table 2 reports univariate statistics (means and percentages). In the 9th grade, 25.6% of students reported smoking. Students named as their friend an average of 4.1 students in their school, with 1.75 of them being identified in their grade. The remaining students were either in different grades in the same school, in different schools, or could not be matched to a name in the grade roster for another reason (e.g., incomplete name specified or illegible). Of the friends named, respondents
Discussion
This study set out to clarify and compare measures of peer norms, peer influence and selection, on adolescent smoking. The results generally supported the hypothesis that egocentric measures of perceived friend smoking were more strongly associated with smoking than the sociometric ones based on friends' self-report. These conclusions are tempered by some limitations.
First, the data from this study were collected, by design, from schools that are predominately Hispanic/Latino and so may not be
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant # DA016310).
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2020, Preventive MedicineCitation Excerpt :The health behaviors investigated were alcohol drinking (n = 5) (Kreager and Haynie, 2011; Mercken et al., 2012b; Mundt et al., 2012; Long et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2017); cigarette smoking (n = 7) (Huisman and Bruggeman, 2012; Valente et al., 2013; Aloise-Young et al., 1994; Go et al., 2010; Go et al., 2012; Mercken et al., 2010; Schaefer et al., 2012); both drinking and smoking (n = 2) (Kiuru et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2016); substance use (n = 4) (Mathys et al., 2013; Pearson et al., 2006a; Poulin et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2018); PA (n = 2) (Simpkins et al., 2013; de la Haye et al., 2011) and dietary/weight-related behaviors (n = 2) (De la Haye et al., 2013; Shoham et al., 2012) (Table 4). These included nine ‘good quality’ (Kreager and Haynie, 2011; De la Haye et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2018; Simpkins et al., 2013; Mercken et al., 2012b; Mundt et al., 2012; Go et al., 2012; Mercken et al., 2010), three ‘fair quality’ (Mathys et al., 2013; de la Haye et al., 2011; Valente et al., 2013) and nine ‘poor quality’ (Kiuru et al., 2010; Pearson et al., 2006a; Poulin et al., 2011; Huisman and Bruggeman, 2012; Aloise-Young et al., 1994; Long et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2017; Go et al., 2010; Schaefer et al., 2012) studies. The majority of studies acknowledged the presence of both homophilic social selection and social influence processes, but did not disentangle the relative contribution of either process (Kreager and Haynie, 2011; De la Haye et al., 2013; Shoham et al., 2012; Long et al., 2017; Go et al., 2010; Go et al., 2012; Schaefer et al., 2012; Kiuru et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2016; Pearson et al., 2006a; Poulin et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2018; Huisman and Bruggeman, 2012; Valente et al., 2013; Aloise-Young et al., 1994).