The findings were unsettling because college students have traditionally smoked less than those less educated; but they also follow a large increase in smoking among pre-college teens earlier in the ‘90s that may be traced to youth-appeal cigarette advertising, authors of the study said.
     The report from the Harvard School of Public Health found a 28 percent jump in smoking on college campuses over a four-year period ending last year.
     “These results are a cause for alarm and call for an examination and strengthening of prevention efforts from middle school through college,” the report said.
     “The national debate on smoking policies, which has focused mainly on youth younger than 18 years, should be expanded to include the college-aged population, whose future health should be a national priority,” it added.

‘Wake-Up Call ... at all Levels’
“College students and people with college educations have traditionally smoked at lower levels than people not attending college,” said Henry Weschler, the study’s principal investigator. “This rise in smoking among the most highly educated youth in America should be a wake-up call about the problem of smoking at all levels of society.”
     Nancy Rigotti, director of tobacco research and treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital and another of the report’s authors, said in an interview that 90 percent of the smokers polled had their first cigarette before the age of 19 and a quarter of them did not become regular smokers until they were in college.
     She said a number of other studies indicate that the rise in teen smoking which began early in the decade followed “a tremendous increase in tobacco industry advertising and promotion directed toward children.”

Joe Camel’s Legacy?
And while the industry denies it was going after children, she added, “it is quite clear from other studies that their methods—Joe Camel and so forth—did appeal to young people and now we’re seeing the result.”
     Joe Camel advertising featured a cartoon figure in appealing settings. That kind of pitch would be forbidden under the $206 billion settlement announced Monday between the states and the tobacco industry.
     The findings in the new study came from a 1997 survey of 14,521 students at 116 four-year colleges in 39 states, whose smoking habits were compared to the results of a similar 1993 poll of 15,103 students.
     The report said the 1997 survey found smoking prevalence higher in whites than blacks or Asians and higher among freshmen, sophomores and juniors than seniors and fifth-year students.

Varied Depending on School Type
“Prevalence was lower at private than public schools, lower at commuter schools (where 90 percent or more of the students lived off campus) than at residential schools, and lower at highly competitive schools (based on entrance criteria) compared with less-competitive schools,” it added.
     The 1997 survey found more students already smoking when they entered college than was the case four years earlier.
     “These data suggest that the rise in adolescent smoking that occurred in the 1990s is not a transient phenomenon. They will likely have higher smoking rates as adults and thereby contribute to higher overall adult smoking rates in future years,” said the study published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
     The report suggested colleges adopt policies to discourage smoking, such as expanding smoke-free areas on campuses and making sure that dormitories and other shared living quarters are smoke-free.

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