Federal government websites often end in. The site is secure. Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October Learn More or Try it out now. Alfredo Morabia, Michael C. Costanza, and Martine S. This study sought to determine whether the age at initiation of regular cigarette smoking and the likelihood of quitting smoking through age 35 differ among women from younger versus older generations.
Annual population-based, random surveys total of female residents of Geneva, Switzerland, aged 35β74 years were conducted from to Young female smokers have a higher propensity to quit smoking compared with older women. Encouraging young smokers to quitβin addition to preventing nonsmokers from startingβmay be an important facet of reducing cigarette smoking prevalence among adolescents.
Since the mids, European women have tended to start smoking cigarettes at an earlier age than in previous generations. Therefore, it is important to examine whether an increased frequency of smoking cessation attempts by young people could be considered an additional indicator of the success of public health strategies designed to prevent cigarette smoking.
With this perspective, we sought to determine the distribution, in a representative sample of the Geneva population, of first attempts to quit smoking among women 35 years or younger who had smoked at least cigarettes and who initiated smoking at 25 years or younger.
We collected more detailed information on cigarette smoking history than is usually available in large population-based surveys or cohort studies. Between January and December we conducted annual, representative surveys of the 98 women aged 35 to 74 years who are noninstitutionalized residents of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.
