Social, Personality and Environmental Determinants of Smoking in Young Finnish Men

The study was based on 471 males, aged 19 to 20 years, who started their compulsory military service in three military bases in Southwest, Southeast and Northern Finland in February 1982. Of these subjects 48% smoked regularly and had smoked in the past three weeks. The correlation between the repor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scandinavian Journal of Social Medicine
Main Authors: Hämynen, Heikki, Vartiainen, Erkki, Sahi, Timo, Pallonen, Unto, Salonen, Jukka T.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 1987
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/140349488701500403
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/140349488701500403
Description
Summary:The study was based on 471 males, aged 19 to 20 years, who started their compulsory military service in three military bases in Southwest, Southeast and Northern Finland in February 1982. Of these subjects 48% smoked regularly and had smoked in the past three weeks. The correlation between the reported number of cigarettes smoked a day and serum thiocyanate was 0.60. Seventy-four per cent of the subjects whose best friend smoked, were current smokers compared with 24% of the others. Proportion of smokers was higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Among the 14 explanatory variables in the multivariate logistic analysis, family members' and friends' smoking, the place of residence, strenuousness of leisure-time physical activities, number of friends, rebelliousness, intelligence test score, and general pessimism were most strongly associated with the likelihood of being a current smoker. The model explained 87% of the smoking variance.