May 13, 2009

Contact:
Jeremy Craig, 404-413-1357
University Relations

Public health professor explores efforts to help teenagers to quit smoking

ATLANTA - A Georgia State University public health professor is exploring the tools used to help professionals to evaluate teen smoking addiction, and ultimately, to help teens quit a health-harming habit.

Assistant Professor Kymberle L. Sterling at Georgia State’s Institute of Public Health, and her colleagues evaluated a tool call the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale, or NDSS, which was originally developed to measure how adults become addicted to nicotine.

The NDSS examines five factors, including the drive to smoke, tolerance to the effects of nicotine, the regularity of the smoking, the frequency of smoking, and the priority smokers place over other activities.

Sterling and her colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Oregon State University and the University of Pittsburgh found that the drive and tolerance factors were most prominent for continued smoking and cessation among teen smokers in their sample.

“At one time, researchers were unsure how nicotine dependence developed in teens,” Sterling said. “The study helps us understand what dependency looks like in teens, and once we understand how it develops and progresses, we can create programs to help teens break the habit and quit smoking.”

The enormity of teen smoking amplifies the importance of helping teens to kick the habit, as there are signs that declines in teen smoking rates are stalling. In the U.S., 3.5 million adolescents smoke, and even in their teens, adolescent smokers develop signs of cardiovascular disease — which will be compounded with other smoking-associated health problems as they grow into adulthood.

“We know that most adult smokers, when asked when they began to smoke, will tell you that they started as teens,” Sterling explained. “With more preventive measures in place, it is less likely that teenagers will begin smoking, become dependent on nicotine, and become daily smokers as adults.”

Stemming this problem early means that health professionals must reach out to provide teenagers with the help they need to stop smoking. Sterling and her colleagues have also examined characteristics of cessation programs aimed at teen smokers.

Sterling, who is also exploring strategies to prevent obesity in teens, is collaborating with public health researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago on a longitudinal study of teen smokers to examine the relationship among smoking, physical activity and eating patterns.

Sterling’s research, “Examining the Psychometric Properties and Predictive Validity of a Youth-Specific Version of the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale,” will be published in a forthcoming edition of Addictive Behaviors. “Internally-Developed Teen Smoking Cessation Programs: Characterizing the Unique Features of Programs Developed by Community-Based Organizations,” was published in the March edition of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.