Learning Objectives: To understand social, cultural, and environmental factors that promote, sustain, or discourage use of tobacco by Dursunbey’s youth.
Abstract: Research Question: What are The Social and cultural influences on youth tobacco use in Dursunbey, Turkey? My study is a multi-method descriptive analysis of the place of tobacco in the lives of youth in a town of population 15,000 in the Aegean region, one of the most populated areas of Turkey. Oriented by quantitative work from surveys in Turkey showing unacceptably high rates of tobacco use and related norms, I focused on a single community and environs to comprehensively explore tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of high schoolers. My particular concern, informed by Social Cognitive Theory, is to understand better the role of peers, family, and other environmental features (including media and whatever tobacco promotions remain after implementation of Turkey’s restrictive tobacco-related laws) that influence youth. To do this, I (1) carried out a rigorously designed school-based survey, and also (2) carried out qualitative, semi-structured interviews of key informants (e.g., school principals, teachers, counselors) and youth (N=30). The survey sample consist of all students in the 10th grade of high school (N of about 200). Key informant interviews allowed me to contextualize findings in terms of the ecology of tobacco availability, societal and local norms, and youth’s daily lives. The qualitatively grounded aspects of the study, along with review of literature and materials on tobacco in Turkey, shed light on social, cultural, and environmental factors that promote, sustain, or discourage use of tobacco by Dursunbey’s youth.
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