Smoking on rise at US campuses, a survey finds 28% more use tobacco than in 1993

Author: By Judy Foreman, Globe Staff

Date: WEDNESDAY, November 18, 1998

Page: A3

Section: National/Foreign

Smoking is up among all student groups, regardless of age, sex, year in school, race, and ethnicity, said the researchers, who analyzed responses from more than 14,000 students in 1997 and more than 15,000 in 1993. In 1993, 22 percent of college students said they smoked; now, more than 28 percent say they do.

Furthermore, smoking was up in 99 out of 116 four-year schools in the 39 states surveyed, according to social psychologist Henry Wechsler, senior author of the paper published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association and director of College Alcohol Studies at the Harvard School of Public Health.

``That's the most dramatic finding,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``It shows it's everywhere.''

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and ill health in America, a factor in more than 400,000 deaths a year.

A major reason for the surge in college smoking, the researchers said, is that smoking has been up among high school and middle school children lately and these young people are now in college. In fact, between 1991 and 1997, cigarette smoking rose 32 percent among high school students.

``We had hoped that college students would be more immune to this type of behavior, that they would read health messages and warning labels more,'' Wechsler said.

The rise is significant because traditionally, people with college educations have been less likely to smoke. A 1994 survey found 25.5 percent of US adults were smokers.

Although the tide has seemed to turn against tobacco companies recently, the entertainment industry has been promoting ``the idea that smoking is more common than it is,'' noted Dr. Donald Sharp, a medical epidemiologist on smoking and health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

``There has been an increase in the depiction of tobacco use in feature films,'' agreed Jay Winsten, associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health. ``The glamorizing of smoking serves as an important barrier interfering with other efforts to curb tobacco smoking by teenagers and children.''

One study showed that more than half of the top-grossing feature films between 1991 and 1996 depicted tobacco use, added Susan Moses, deputy director for Harvard's center for health communication.

Amy Ryan, a senior at Brown University, said she first lit up about 18 months ago, and now smokes half a pack to a pack a day.

``I started because my boyfriend did it, and it was very much one of those I-want-to-be-cool things,'' Ryan said. ``To some extent, you're hanging around and [by smoking] showing you're not a prude. I was hitting my I'm-going-to-be-fun-in-college stage.''

Smoking rates were up in all kinds of colleges -- public and private, commuter and residential, large and small, schools that are academically competitive and those that are less so. Smoking rates were also similar between rural and urban schools, women's and co-ed schools, and schools with and without religious affiliation.

Although smoking was up among all groups of college students, certain groups -- notably Asians, African-Americans and Hispanics -- have lower smoking rates than whites, researchers found. Older students -- seniors and fifth-year -- are less likely to smoke than underclassmen.

Most students began smoking in high school, the researchers found, with just 11 percent beginning at or after age 19.

Half of all college smokers said they had tried to quit in the previous year, which suggests more aggressive anti-smoking campaigns might be effective on campuses.

At least two things might help, Wechsler and co-author Dr. Nancy Rigotti noted in a prepared statement. Rigotti is director of tobacco research and treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Colleges could offer more smoking cessation programs and create smoke-free areas -- including dormitories. That would reduce nonsmokers' exposure to second-hand smoke, and also ease the temptation for smokers trying to quit.

Some schools are trying to do just that. Emerson College in Boston, for instance, began offering a smoking cessation program last spring and made one of its largest dormitories smoke-free, said Jane Powers, director of health services.

Raising the price of cigarettes might also help, said Sharp of the CDC. So would ``counter advertising'' to offset the $5 billion a year the tobacco industry spends in advertising and promotion.