Canadian Research Data Centre Network

The paper develops an integrative model to simultaneously examine the effects of parenting strategies in childhood on a child’s (1) probability to follow a shape of smoking growth, (2) tobacco dependence at adulthood, and (3) growth patterns within a particular smoking shape. Empirical results from a nationally representative longitudinal dataset gathered from the same individuals over a course of eight years (from ages 10-11 to 18-19) provide strong support for the conceptual model. Specifically, there emerge five distinct, unobservable smoking growth patterns in the data, including stable light smokers, gradual escalators, quitters, rapid escalators, and stable nonsmokers. The shapes of smoking growth, in turn, affect the same child’s tobacco dependence four years later at ages 22-23. Parenting strategies and other more observable variables are utilized to profile members in each latent group. Parenting strategies are also found to impact a child’s likelihood to follow a particular smoking pattern. In addition, parenting strategies have differential effects on smoking trajectories across different groups. From a managerial perspective, this research provides new avenues for social workers and policy makers to segment smoking children and design targeted prevention and intervention programs to help them curtail tobacco use.