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标题：Neighborhood Residence and Cigarette Smoking Among Urban Youths: The Protective Role of Prosocial Activities
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作者：Yange Xue ; Marc A. Zimmerman ; Cleopatra Howard Caldwell 等
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2007
卷号：97
期号：10
页码：1865-1872
DOI：10.2105/AJPH.2005.081307
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：Objectives. We examined the association between neighborhood characteristics and cigarette use among adolescents and explored the protective effects of participation in prosocial activities to better understand strengths in adolescents’ lives and help identify protective factors for the prevention of adolescent smoking. Methods. We interviewed ninth graders who had grade point averages of 3.0 or lower and who were not developmentally disabled. Participants’ addresses were geocoded so that interview data could be linked to 1990 US census data on neighborhood characteristics. Results. Neighborhood disadvantage and the percentage of Black residents in a neighborhood had different effects on cigarette smoking among Black and White adolescents. Living in a neighborhood with a high percentage of Black residents had favorable effects for Blacks but not for Whites. For both groups, a low percentage of Black residents was a risk factor for cigarette use, and risk effects were higher in the more disadvantaged neighborhoods. Involvement in prosocial activities moderated neighborhood risks. Conclusions. Neighborhood effects on adolescent cigarette use were contingent upon both contextual and individual characteristics. Participation in prosocial activities had a protective effect among adolescents in high-risk neighborhoods. Engaging adolescents in such activities may help offset the adverse effects of living in a disadvantaged neighborhood. Approximately 80% of adult smokers began smoking before the age of 18 years. 1 This trend in early initiation of cigarette smoking, together with the adverse consequences of smoking, 1 ^– 3 suggests that understanding factors associated with adolescent smoking remains a public health priority. Previous studies have mostly focused on individual, family, peer, and school influences 4 ; few researchers have investigated neighborhood effects on cigarette use. As predicted by social disorganization theories, 5 ^, 6 growing evidence has demonstrated that neighborhood sociodemographic attributes are associated with adolescent risk behaviors. Disadvantaged neighborhoods have been found to be a risk factor for delinquency, 7 ^– 9 adolescent sexuality and childbearing, 10 ^– 12 and low educational attainment. 11 ^, 13 Furthermore, neighborhood racial/ethnic diversity is associated with adolescent criminal activity. 8 Findings from the few studies examining the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and substance use are mixed. Substance use is often identified as occurring more frequently in poor urban neighborhoods. 14 ^, 15 One study that linked neighborhood characteristics with adult drug use demonstrated that neighborhood disadvantage was associated with increased drug use. 16 By contrast, a study of Chicago adolescents indicated that neighborhood poverty was not related to cigarette use, 17 and other studies have reported no association between neighborhood disadvantage and adolescent substance use. 18 ^, 19 Researchers have also found that the effects of neighborhood disadvantage on cigarette use differ according to race/ethnicity and neighborhood racial composition. For example, Diez Roux et al., 20 in a study of young adults, found that neighborhood disadvantage was associated with smoking prevalence rates among Whites but not among Blacks. Similarly, Tseng et al. 21 found that neighborhood disadvantage was a risk factor for smoking among White women but not among Black women. In addition, Reardon et al. 17 found that a high percentage of Black residents in a neighborhood was associated with a lower risk of adolescent smoking initiation, regardless of race. Together, these findings suggest that specific characteristics of neighborhoods can either promote or discourage cigarette use among young people. Most previous research on neighborhood effects has examined only direct effects (i.e., effects are assumed to be the same for all) of neighborhood disadvantage, but not all adolescents exposed to risk factors experience negative outcomes. Resilience theory, which focuses on positive adjustment among individuals exposed to risks, provides 1 way to study this issue. 22 ^– 25 Individuals who avoid negative outcomes may overcome these risks as a result of compensatory or protective factors (i.e., assets or resources). 22 Involvement in prosocial activities (i.e., activities associated with organized groups that help children and adolescents develop skills) has been found to be one of the factors that protect young people from risks associated with cigarette use. 24 ^, 25 Researchers have found that adolescents who are more involved in such activities are less likely to smoke cigarettes. 26 ^– 29 Research has also demonstrated favorable effects of prosocial involvement on academic achievement, 30 ^– 33 sexual risk behavior, 34 ^, 35 antisocial behavior, 36 criminal behavior, 29 ^, 37 and drug and alcohol use. 27 ^, 38 ^– 42 Many of these studies, however, involved predominantly White samples. 26 ^, 27 Moreover, to our knowledge no study has investigated the protective role of participation in prosocial activities in relation to neighborhood-level risks. We investigated whether neighborhood disadvantage and racial composition are associated with adolescent cigarette smoking after we controlled for individual characteristics, parental and peer influences, and participation in prosocial activities. More important, we examined whether neighborhood effects on cigarette use are moderated by prosocial participation. Most researchers investigating prosocial participation have focused on the particular type of activity or the setting (e.g., school, church, and community). 34 ^, 43 ^, 44 Because different activities may ameliorate neighborhood risks in different ways, we examined overall prosocial participation as well as involvement in specific types of activities. We included parental and peer substance use as control variables in the analysis because parental and peer influences have been recognized as factors in smoking behaviors 45 ^– 49 and may be confounded with neighborhood effects. Our sample was composed of urban youths at low levels of academic achievement who were at risk for cigarette use. 50 ^– 53 Although including only young people with low school achievement may limit the generalizability of our results, we viewed this strategy as beneficial in that it could potentially uncover critical risk and protective factors unique to members of this population, whose cigarette use may be influenced by different factors than those influencing their higher-achieving counterparts.