Multiple trajectories of cigarette smoking and the intergenerational transmission of smoking: a multigenerational, longitudinal study of a Midwestern community sample.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the relation between developmental phenotypes of parental smoking (trajectories of smoking from adolescence to adulthood) and the intergenerational transmission of smoking to their adolescent children.


METHODS
A longitudinal, multigenerational study of a midwestern community sample followed individuals from adolescence into adulthood and was combined with Web-based assessment of participants' spouses and adolescent children. Mixture modeling identified multiple trajectories of smoking, and path analyses related these trajectories to adolescents' smoking (beyond both parents' current smoking). Potential mediations were parental education and adolescents' personality characteristics.


METHODS
The outcome measure was adolescent smoking.


RESULTS
A parent's smoking trajectory had a unique effect on their adolescent's smoking, beyond both parents' current smoking and the parent's educational attainment. However, although adolescents' personality characteristics were related both to adolescent smoking and to their parents' smoking, these characteristics could not explain the effects of the parent's smoking trajectory.


CONCLUSIONS
Parents whose smoking had an early onset, steep acceleration, high levels of smoking, and persistence over time had the highest risk for intergenerational transmission of smoking to their adolescent children.
Chassin
Laurie
L
Psychology Department, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA. laurie.chassin@asu.edu
Presson
Clark
C
Seo
Dong-Chul
DC
Sherman
Steven J
SJ
Macy
Jon
J
Wirth
R J
RJ
Curran
Patrick
P
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D008297:Male; D015146:Midwestern United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D010551:Personality; D010641:Phenotype; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*