College Smoking, Partying Linked

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Young people who partake in a "party" lifestyle
during their college years are much more likely to smoke than less
hedonistic students, according to a new study.

"High-risk behaviors, such as using marijuana, drinking heavily, and having
multiple sex partners, are the strongest correlates of smoking status among
this population," say researchers led by Dr. Karen Emmons of the Harvard
School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.

Their findings, published in the current issue of the American Journal of
Public Health, were based on a random survey of the habits and behaviors of
over 17,500 college students at 140 campuses across the United States.

The study authors discovered that "22.3% of the full-time students at
four-year colleges had smoked during the previous 30 days." Among that
group, over a third smoked at least a half a pack of cigarettes per day.
The researchers found little gender-based differences in smoking incidence
among college students.

They note, however, that students who said parties were "important" to them
had nearly double the risk of being current smokers. And the researchers
say regular indulgence in party-based "binge drinking" was found to "raise
the likelihood of smoking in college more than threefold," compared with
those who drank moderately or abstained.

Marijuana use was also linked to a nearly sevenfold increase in smoking
incidence, compared with those students who did not use the drug.

The researchers believe these statistics point to the "possibility that
students may have developed dependencies on multiple substances."

Sexual behavior was also linked to smoking incidence, especially among
women. Female students who said they had had sex with two or more partners
in the month previous to the survey had triple the incidence of smoking
compared with women with less active sex lives.

Among men, those who were disinterested in participation in college sports
had a nearly 60% raised risk of smoking compared with their more athletic
peers.

The Harvard investigators believe most college smokers probably picked up
their habit during high school. But they point out that the college years
are "a time during which unhealthy behaviors developed during adolescence
may be malleable or may be consolidated into lifetime patterns."

Increasing anti-smoking efforts on college campuses could "help reduce the
long-term morbidity and mortality related to smoking," they say.

Copyright © 1998 Reuters Limited.