Contextual influences on adolescent smoking (UCI, Jamner).

The human biobehavioral research team of the UCI TTURC has been using real-time ambulatory methodologies to examine the relationships of specific contexts, moods, and behaviors to smoking patterns and urges in adolescents and young adults. A key focus is on the role of dispositional traits, as they interact with social and situational contexts, in the development of tobacco use and dependence over the critical high-school and college years. Using special diary programs on palmtop computers (PDAs), we have obtained precise, high-density, contemporaneous recordings in natural environments. During a 4-year longitudinal analysis, substantial associations between smoking and negative affect have been demonstrated. The prevalence of negative moods among adolescents was found to be considerably higher than those observed in adult samples using comparable diary methods, and these were found to be powerful determinants of smoking. The linkage between social environment and smoking will also be discussed.