Trends - Smoking

Attitudes to cigarettes 1983-2007

The following is a summary of the report available from SHEU (£10 incl. p&p)

When looking over these many years of figures, we find that young people in recent years are...

* the last ten years show a rise in those young people reporting they have 'never smoked at all'
* over the years the older females have remained the 'heavier' smokers ranging from 12% (1987), 20% (1996) and around 15% in more recent years
* consistently reporting that around 50% of 14-15 year olds have a close friend that smokes regularly
* more than 50% of pupils lived in a home where somebody smoked regularly indoors

We also find that for the young people that smoke...

* Around 75% of smokers want to give up smoking, a proportion that has not risen despite anti-smoking campaigns and health education programmes
* 14-15 year olds are more likely, than in previous years, to have smoked at least 10 cigarettes in the past week
* they are more likely to smoke if family and close friends are smokers - 14-15 year old females are 8 times more likely to smoke if they have a close friend who smokes - but families may be the most important influence
* they are less likely to buy cigarettes from a shop than in previous years