Multiple trajectories of cigarette smoking and the intergenerational transmission of smoking. Health Psychology 2008

Objective: To investigate the relation between developmental phenotypes of parental smoking (trajec-tories of smoking from adolescence to adulthood) and the intergenerational transmission of smoking to their adolescent children. Design: 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. Main Outcome Measure: The outcome measure was adolescent smok-ing. 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. Conclusion: 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