[Smoking patterns among boys and girls in Danish elementary school classes].

INTRODUCTION

The objective was to study the correlation between male and female smoking prevalence in elementary school classes at grade nine through group-level analysis.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Data was collected by the 1998 Danish contribution to the cross-national study Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children. A standardised questionnaire was applied. This study included ninety school classes at grade nine (1515 students) from a random sample of schools in Denmark. The outcome measure was the proportion of male and female smokers in the school classes.

RESULTS

The proportion of male and female smokers within the school classes did not correlate. For both boys and girls there was a high variation in the proportion of smokers between the school classes.

DISCUSSION

The smoking-related social processes that exist in the school classes probably operate in a sex-differentiated manner. The effect of the classroom environment on the students' smoking behaviour must be considered differently for boys and girls.