THE IMPACT of SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS on ADOLESCENT SMOKING IN SOUTH KOREA

Background: Adolescent smoking rate is increasing in South Korea. An adolescent period is influenced by surrounding environment. Adolescents spend most of their days in the school. Therefore, school environment is important to them. While previous studies have found individual, a family and peers factors among adolescents in smoking, school environment factors have been neglected.
Objectives: The aim of this study is to examine school environment influence as factors in smoking behavior of adolescents.
Contents and Methods: Data are used from The 3st Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBWS) conduced by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) in 2007 and the “school factors” data. Multi-level logistic regression analysis is used to identify school environmental factors.
Contribution: The results of the analysis show school environmental factors among adolescents. This study finds school environmental factors and those factors are utilized for school smoking policies considering school factors and school smoking prevalence. The study suggests that Individual level and school level be linked. So, Adolescent smoking prevalence rate can be effectively reduced by changing school environment.