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Press releases
July 15 2005 Smoke Alarm: A Third of Primary School Children Have Tried Smoking Almost a third of primary school children have tried smoking with the greatest influencers at that age being parents and siblings – not peer pressure. These are some of the shocking findings revealed today in a unique study by The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and Liverpool John Moores University into preadolescent attitudes towards smoking. Key findings from the research reveal that children are conditioned to smoking at nursery age and children from low income families are the most likely to start smoking. Children who have experimented with smoking are more likely to have known a relative who has suffered from a smoking-related illness. The study also reveals that over half of all primary school children live in a house with at least one person who smokes and of the children who took part in the study less than four per cent cited their reason for experimenting with smoking as peer pressure with the majority being influenced by their parents’ or relatives’ habit. Kevin Barron MP, Chair of the Health Select Committee and member of the All Party Group on Smoking and Health comments: “For the first time, The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation has given children a voice on an issue which has an appalling, damaging effect on them. The younger children are when they start smoking, the more likely they are to carry on, and die early from the effects of this habit. It is shocking to think that children have experimented with smoking by the age of eight, but the results of this study highlight the seriousness of the situation. It is clear that more needs to be done to educate people about the damaging consequences of smoking in the home and in front of children.” Part of a study funded by The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, this is the only existing research into smoking to focus on both early childhood and the preadolescent years to establish and explore how views and behaviours towards smoking emerge and develop between the ages of four and eleven years. Commenting on the initial findings from the study Chris Owens, Head of Tobacco Control at The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation said: “450 young people start smoking every day in the UK and over half of them will die prematurely from a smoking-related illness. These research findings are extremely alarming and prove that the process of becoming a smoker begins very early in childhood. The findings provide us with a vital insight into how the process develops and will enable us to continue to develop and implement effective smoking prevention and health education programmes.” The devastating picture of children’s attitudes towards smoking in modern Britain has been produced by tracking a group of 250 children from the age of four to eleven, through six primary schools in Liverpool, reflecting the range of socio-economic conditions across the country. Dr Susan Woods, senior research fellow at Liverpool John Moores University said: “By adopting a child-centred approach to the research, allowing the children to voice their own thoughts, perceptions and views, we have been able to produce a unique in-depth picture of the social and cultural contexts that influence children to smoke, which is crucial to future research.” This unique research will continue to follow the same pupils until the end of compulsory education at the age of sixteen to produce one of the most comprehensive studies on child and adolescent smoking in the world, which will assist the development of both tobacco control policy and future practice. The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation actively helps to educate children in schools throughout the country about the dangers of smoking and encourages young people to campaign against tobacco through its educational programmes KATS (Kids Against Tobacco Smoke), and ATYC (Anti-Tobacco Youth Campaign). For further information please visit: www.roycastle.org/kats |
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| Notes to Editors If you would like to see an executive summary of the study please email kcwilliams@webershandwick.com The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation is the only charity in the world wholly dedicated to defeating lung cancer – the biggest cancer killer in the UK. The charity’s approach benefits current and future lung cancer sufferers alike: • The foundation funds research programmes to detect lung cancer at a very early stage, which will save lives and is vital to the development of a future therapy. For further information please visit www.roycastle.org Issued by Weber Shandwick on behalf of The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation (Registered Charity 1046854) - for further media information please contact: |
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Kimberley Williams |
Kirsty Haken |
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