Abstract
Peer attributes other than smoking have received little attention in the research on adolescent smoking, even though the developmental literature suggests the importance of multiple dimensions of adolescent friendships and peer relations. Social network analysis was used to measure the structure of peer relations (i.e., indicators of having friends, friendship quality, and status among peers) and peer smoking (i.e., friend and school smoking). We used three-level hierarchical growth models to examine the contribution of each time-varying peer variable to individual trajectories of smoking from age 11 to 17 while controlling for the other variables, and we tested interactions between the peer structure and peer smoking variables. Data were collected over five waves of assessment from a longitudinal sample of 6,579 students in three school districts. Findings suggest a greater complexity in the peer context of smoking than previously recognized.
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Acknowledgment
This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA13459). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Applications of Social Network Analysis to the Prevention of Substance Use and Delinquency Conference held November 11, 2005 at Pennsylvania State University.
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Ennett, S.T., Faris, R., Hipp, J. et al. Peer Smoking, Other Peer Attributes, and Adolescent Cigarette Smoking: A Social Network Analysis. Prev Sci 9, 88–98 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-008-0087-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-008-0087-8