Abstract
Purpose: Tobacco use initiated during adolescence often leads to continued use in adulthood. There are multiple factors influencing initiation, including low perceived risk of harm. Adolescents involved in school-based extracurricular activities have opportunities to interact with coaches, leaders, and group supervisors who may influence their perception of risk. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of extracurricular activities and adolescents' perceived risks of harm of tobacco use, utilizing an existing dataset.
Methods: The 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) dataset was used for a cross-sectional study of youth, ages 12 to <18 years. Adolescents involved in one or more school-based, extracurricular activities were compared with adolescents involved in no activities. The key variable was the response to the NSDUH question regarding perceived risk of harm from daily smoking (≥1 packs of cigarettes). Chi-square tests and multinomial logistic regression were used to analyze the data.
Results: At the time of the 2016 NSDUH study period, among the adolescents aged 12 to <18 years (n=4,308), 17.5% indicated that they did not participate in any extracurricular activities and 10.6% reported no/slight perceived risk of harm associated with tobacco use. Adolescents who did not participate in extracurricular activities were more likely to report no/slight risk of harm from smoking (Adjusted Odds Ratio, AOR= 2.21 [95%CI: 1.62, 3.02]) as opposed to the perception of great risk of harm.
Conclusion: Adolescents who are not involved in extracurricular activities are more likely to endorse the perception that cigarettes have no/slight risk of harm. School-based extracurricular activities may provide unintended benefits to adolescents; health care professionals, including dental hygienists, should be aware of this associated health benefit.
Footnotes
R. Constance Wiener, MA, DMD, PhD is an associate professor, Department of Dental Practice and Rural Health; Ruchi Bhandari, PhD, MPA, MBA is an assistant professor, Department of Epidemiology; Susan Morgan, DDS is a professor, Department of Periodontics, Alcinda K. Trickett Shockey, RDH, DHSc, is a professor, Department of Dental Hygiene; Christopher Waters, MS is the Research Labs Director, Department of Dental Research; all at West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV.
This manuscript supports the NDHRA priority area Population level: Health services (Epidemiology).
Disclosure
This study was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number 5U54GM104942-04. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
- Received September 10, 2019.
- Accepted May 29, 2020.
- Copyright © 2020 The American Dental Hygienists’ Association
