Recent, national trends in US adolescent use of menthol and non-menthol cigarettes

ObjectiveIn light of the current U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal to ban menthol cigarettes, this study updates trends in menthol cigarette use among adolescents age 13–18 years up to the year 2020. The study considers a potential role for the ban to reduce black/non-black disparities in menthol cigarette use, as well as a counterargument that a ban is not necessary because menthol use is already diminishing.MethodsData are from annual, cross-sectional, nationally representative Monitoring the Future (MTF) surveys of 85 547 8th, 10th and 12th grade students surveyed between 2012 and 2020. Analyses include trends in past 30-day menthol and non-menthol cigarette smoking among the total adolescent population, as well as stratified by race/ethnicity.ResultsDeclines in adolescent menthol and non-menthol cigarette smoking continued through 2020 so that in 2018–2020 past 30-day prevalence for each was less than 1% for non-Hispanic black adolescents and less than 2.2% for non-black adolescents. For non-Hispanic black adolescents no smoking declines in mentholated or non-mentholated cigarette use from 2015–2017 to 2018–2020 were statistically significant, in part because prevalence levels approached a floor effect and had little room to fall further. Menthol levels were lower for non-Hispanic black versus all other adolescents in all study years.ConclusionsContinuing declines in adolescent menthol prevalence indicate that both menthol prevalence and also black/non-black disparities in its use are steadily decreasing. However, these decreases in adolescence will take decades to reach later ages through generational replacement. Efforts to accelerate menthol decreases will require new initiatives to increase cessation among adult menthol users.

Adolescent Cannabis Users Who Have Never Smoked A Combustible Cigarette: Trends and Level of Addictive Drug Use from 1976 to 2020

Background. Adolescents cannabis users are at a substantially elevated risk for use of highly addictive drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and nonmedical use of prescription drugs. Unknown is whether this elevated risk applies to adolescent cannabis users who have never smoked a combustible cigarette, a group that has grown considerably in size in recent years. This study documents the recent growth in the proportion of adolescent cannabis users who abstain from combustible cigarette use, and examines their probability for use of addictive drugs. Methods. Data are annual, cross-sectional, nationally-representative Monitoring the Future surveys of 607,932 U.S. 12th grade students from 1976-2020. Results. Among ever cannabis users, the percentage who had never smoked a combustible cigarette grew from 11% in 2000 to 58% in 2020. This group had levels of addictive drug use that were 8% higher than their peers. In comparison, adolescents who had ever used cannabis – regardless of whether they had ever smoked a cigarette – had levels of addictive drug use 500% higher than their peers.Conclusions. Adolescent cannabis users who have not smoked a combustible cigarette have much lower levels of addictive drug use than the group of cannabis users as a whole. These results suggest policies and laws aimed at reducing adolescent prevalence of addictive drugs may do better to focus on cigarette use of adolescent cannabis users rather than cannabis use per se.

Developmental Idealism and a Half Century of Family Attitude Trends in the United States

This paper examines a half century of trends in family attitudes and beliefs in the United States, including attitudes towards gender, marriage, childbearing, cohabitation, sex outside marriage, divorce, and same-sex relations. We trace attitudes from the 1960s through the 2010s using four data sources: Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children, Monitoring the Future, General Social Survey, and International Social Science Project. We find profound and largely consistent changes in Americans’ attitudes. We argue these changes demonstrate the expansion of developmental idealism in the United States. Americans increasingly endorsed longstanding “modern” family attributes, as well as newly “modern” attributes viewed as extensions of freedom and equality and linked to seemingly natural progress of society. At the same time, sizable majorities remained committed to marriage and children. While Americans increasingly supported all individuals’ freedom to choose among a diversity of family behaviors, most continued to choose marriage and children for themselves.

Regional Effects of Perceived Risks of Harm on Cigarette Smoking among U.S. High School Seniors: Evidence from Monitoring the Future

Overall, there has been an increasing trend in the perceived risk of harm from smoking among U.S. high school seniors. However, these perceptions of risk have been falling in recent years. This study uses regional-level panel data from the Monitoring the Future survey and a fixed effects model to estimate the effect of perceived risk on three regional measurements of smoking behavior: consumption, lifetime prevalence, and daily smoking prevalence. Elasticity measurements at regional levels show that an increase in perceived risk decreases these regional measurements of smoking behavior. Moreover, the results show that, at regional levels, these measurements of smoking behavior are more responsive to changes in the perceived risk associated with smoking than to changes in the price of cigarettes.

Exploring How Exposure to Truth and State-Sponsored Anti-Tobacco Media Campaigns Affect Smoking Disparities among Young Adults Using a National Longitudinal Dataset, 2002–2017

Background. Little is known regarding long-term impacts of anti-tobacco media campaigns on youth smoking and related disparities in the United States. Methods. We examined longitudinal cohort data from Monitoring the Future (MTF) between 2000 and 2017 in modified Poisson regression models to understand the long-term impacts of televised Truth and state-sponsored ad campaign exposure at baseline (age 18) on first cigarette and daily smoking initiation 1 to 2 years later (at modal ages 19/20). We also used additive interactions to test for potential effect modification between campaign exposure and smoking outcomes by sex, race/ethnicity, and parental educational attainment. Results. We found no evidence for baseline media campaign exposure to be associated with first cigarette or daily smoking initiation at modal age 19/20. Further, results showed no evidence for effect modification between campaign exposure and first cigarette or daily smoking initiation. Conclusions. We found no evidence that baseline Truth and state-sponsored ad exposure was associated with first cigarette or daily smoking initiation at follow up, nor did we find any evidence for effect modification by sex, race/ethnicity, or parental education. We hypothesize that anti-tobacco media campaigns might have had a short-term impact on smoking behaviors, though these effects were not sustained long term.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline: The Interactive Effects of Gender and Parental Educational Attainment

Prior research has provided consistent evidence that minority students are more likely than White youth to experience punitive forms of discipline in schools. Scholars have theorized that these disadvantages are closely connected to gender and socioeconomic status, but little research has explored how these factors independently and jointly might moderate the effects of race/ethnicity. Using data from the 2012 to 2018 8th and 10th grade cohorts of the Monitoring the Future survey ( N = 53,986), these analyses find that minority students are more likely than Whites to experience suspension/expulsion and office referrals, and this pattern is especially prominent among females. Further, racial/ethnic disparities are amplified for youth whose parents have higher levels of educational attainment, though some differences by gender also emerge.

Vaping and Adolescents’ Characteristics: Implications for Prevention and Intervention

Vaping in the United States has increased in the past decade especially among teens and young adults, causing a rise in public concern for their health. What is relatively scarce in the previous research and the current discussion is the question about what groups of adolescents may be more vulnerable to vaping. This research investigates this very issue by analyzing the associations between vaping use and adolescents’ individual characteristics using a national survey of drug use among U.S. adolescents (“Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of American Youth (12th-Grade Survey), 2018”). The findings for logistic regression show that students who struggle with academics and skip school are more vulnerable to vaping than other students. In addition, there is a greater chance of vaping with those students going out more often than others. The amount of money students earn from a job and other work may also be increasing the chance for vaping. The findings can be valuable elements in designing a program of effective prevention and intervention of vaping in the U.S.

Monitoring Emerging Issues: A Proposed Approach and Initial Test

The increasing complexity and uncertainty of the future may stimulate demand for more monitoring emerging issues. Futurists have long advocated for monitoring the future on an ongoing basis or for tracking the findings of project work in practice. However, clients have historically been reluctant to invest time and money in monitoring, and little practical guidance is available on how to set up a monitoring. This article describes a pilot monitoring capability that is simple and practical to implement. It was developed as a “plug-in” to supplement an ongoing horizon scanning system. The monitoring system tracks the movement of emerging issues that were identified by horizon scanning. It provides a means to keep policy-makers informed about the progress of emerging issues and provides advance warning to develop an appropriate strategic response.

Vaping in the Context of Delinquency Among Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Comparison Among Alcohol and Cigarette Use

Vaping has been increasing with Monitoring the Future, indicating nicotine vaping (2017–2018) having the largest single-year jump among any substance recorded in its 45-year history. Overall, research on vaping has been substantially limited, primarily in the context of vaping and delinquency. This study’s purpose is to examine how nicotine vaping compares with other common substances used by adolescents like alcohol and cigarettes within the context of delinquency. Using secondary data from Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth conducted in 2017, with a sample size of 8,467 participants, we find that ever-nicotine “vapers” were associated with less delinquency than ever-cigarette-using youth; however, these “vapers” were associated with more delinquency than ever-alcohol users. We interpret these results in the context of social bonding and social learning theory and policies to create awareness on the potential social implications of vaping.