[Study on the relationship between smoking behavior and other unhealthy behaviors among middle school students in 4 cities of China].
OBJECTIVE
To explore the situation of smoking behavior among the students of middle school in Beijing, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Urumchi and to analyze the relationship between smoking behavior and several unhealthy behaviors together with psychological troubles to provide evidence in developing an early intervention plan.


METHODS
The National Health Education Institute (NHEI) of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided relevant data on all middle schools in the 4 cities and then U.S. CDC randomly sampled 100 common middle schools from them with a special sampling process. The core questionnaire developed by the experts from WHO and other countries was used in the survey among 9015 sampled students.


RESULTS
Among all the sampled students, 29.4% of them had ever attempted cigarettes smoking while 6.6% of them tried tobacco in the 30 days before survey, 27.0% of the students with smoking behavior began smoking at the age of 9 or younger, 31.8% had learned how to refuse smoking from school education. The students with smoking behavior were more likely to drink alcohol, use drugs, bully others, be injured, miss classes, and have some psychological troubles than those without smoking behavior.


CONCLUSIONS
There were increasing trends noticed on the incidence of attempt and smoking cigarettes. Smoking was closely related to other unhealthy behaviors and psychological troubles. Comprehensive education activities on "no-smoking" should be implemented as early as possible among adolescents, as well as to promote training on life skills.
Tian
Ben-chun
BC
Institute for Health Education, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 100011, China.
Meng
Xian-peng
XP
Lv
Shu-hong
SH
Qian
Ling
L
Zhang
Wei
W
Zhang
Ji-bin
JB
Tian
Xiang-yang
XY
Xiong
Guang-lian
GL
Yan
Wei-hong
WH
Zhang
Xin-wei
XW
Kann
Laura
L
Riley
Leanne
L
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D002648:Child; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D001523:Mental Disorders; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders