Do tobacco countermarketing campaigns increase adolescent under-reporting of smoking?
This study assesses whether a national anti-tobacco campaign for youth could create a social context that would elevate social desirability response bias on surveys, as measured by an increase in under-reporting of smoking. This could give rise to data that falsely suggest a campaign-induced decline in youth smoking, or it could exaggerate campaign effects. Data were obtained from a national sample of 5511 students from 48 high schools that were matched to schools sampled for the 2002 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS). Self-reported smoking was compared with biochemical indicators of smoking, measured using saliva cotinine. The rate of under-reporting detected was 1.3%. Level of truth exposure was not related to under-reporting. This study suggests that for high school students, anti-tobacco campaigns are not an important cause of social desirability responses on surveys, and that in general under-reporting smoking is not a major source of error in school-based surveys.
Messeri
Peter A
PA
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, 722 W. 168 St., Room 1121.4, New York, NY 10032, USA. pam9@columbia.edu
Allen
Jane A
JA
Mowery
Paul D
PD
Healton
Cheryl G
CG
Haviland
M Lyndon
ML
Gable
Julia M
JM
Pedrazzani
Susan D
SD
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D040541:Marketing; D012107:Research Design / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012928:Social Desirability; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000517:prevention & control*