Efforts to prevent school children smoking are not targeted early enough, as children experimenting with tobacco by age seven

New Zealand based research on youth tobacco use suggests that current efforts to prevent school children smoking are not targeted early enough, as it found a significant number are already experimenting with tobacco by age seven.

The New Zealand Youth Lifestyle Study, due to be released at the New Zealand Smoke-free Conference to be held in Wellington on Monday and Tuesday, is a two-yearly study of secondary school students' beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours towards tobacco. Eighty-two schools and 3,434 students participated in the 2002 Youth Lifestyle Study, said Andrew Waa of the Health Sponsorship Council. The study was completed by students in Years 10 and 12.

"Questions in the Youth Lifestyle Study allow us to compare students from NZ with students from over 150 other countries" says Mr Waa. For example, students were asked if they had ever tried smoking, over two thirds of students had. "The number of young New Zealanders who have ever tried smoking is comparable to rates from the United States, but is considerably higher than that reported in some other countries."

Data from the study were analyzed by researchers from the Social and Behavioural Research in Cancer Group at the University of Otago's Dunedin School of Medicine. Helen Darling, who is analyzing the data as part of her PhD studies, says that there were concerns about the young age at which New Zealanders were experimenting with tobacco. Around seven per cent of boys and six per cent of girls surveyed had tried smoking by age seven years. "It would be timely to review tobacco prevention efforts to include younger children," says Ms Darling. "Currently prevention is focused on older primary school children and children at intermediate and secondary school level, many of whom have already experimented with tobacco."

Dr Tony Reeder, a supervisor of Ms Darling's PhD and a co-author of the report said that researchers were also concerned about the large proportion of students exposed to secondhand smoke in the home. Overall, 14 per cent of the non-smokers and 40 per cent of the daily smokers were exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke in the home on all seven days preceding the survey. Dr Reeder said that it was appropriate that recent health promotion has centred on reducing exposure to secondhand smoke and educating the public of the dangers. "Those dangers include a greater likelihood that exposed youth would become smokers themselves", Dr Reeder said.