Smoking among Asian American and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander youth: data from the 2000 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

OBJECTIVES

One of the first steps to reducing the disproportionate burden of tobacco on racial and ethnic minorities is to understand how tobacco differentially affects these populations. This paper, based on a nationally representative sample of Asian American youth and a smaller sample of Hawaiian/Pacific Islander youth, provides the tobacco control community with important information about the smoking behavior of these youth.

METHODS

The National Youth Tobacco Survey conducted during the Spring of 2000 (NYTS 2000) provides recent national estimates of smoking behavior among Asian American youth. The data also permit a limited exploration of possible differences between self-described Asians and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander youth, two groups that have been combined into a single racial/ethnic category in earlier national studies.

FINDINGS

This report provides estimates and 95 percent confidence intervals for current smoking, age of smoking initiation, use of menthol cigarettes and tobacco brand preferences.

CONCLUSIONS

NYTS 2000 data indicate that during the last year of high school, one third of Asian American youth are smokers. Of these youth, 60% report that their usual brand of cigarettes is a menthol brand. Among female Hawaiian/Pacific Islander youth in middle school, more than 25% report having smoked during the past month.