Jump to full article: Dartmouth Medical School, 2008-01-14
Intro: New research from Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) strengthens the case that children's exposure to smoking in movies influences their decision to start smoking. It further suggests that smoking in movies seen in early childhood has an equally significant impact on that decision as movie smoking exposure closer to adolescence. The study, published in the January issue of Pediatrics, was the first of its kind to focus on elementary school children, and the first to update the children's exposure to movie smoking over time.
Lead author is Dr. Linda Titus-Ernstoff, a professor of community and family medicine and of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School (DMS), and the associate director of the Hood Center for Children and Families. The research team surveyed more than 2,200 children ages 9-12 from 26 schools in New Hampshire and Vermont. . . .
"This finding suggests that the process which leads children to initiate smoking begins much earlier than adolescence. Viewing smoking in the movies may influence the decision to smoke in more than a third of children."
The take-home message from this study is that exposure to movie smoking occurring during early childhood is as influential as exposure that occurs nearer to the time of smoking initiation, Titus-Ernstoff says.
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