The Impact of Family Members and Friends Habits on Youths Smoking Behaviour: Consequences for Social Marketing

Abstract

For implementing more effective social marketing programmes for preventing youth’s smoking more information is needed about the backgrounds of their behaviour and choices. The goal of the article is to find out what is the impact of family and friends’ habits on youth’s smoking behaviour and make suggestions for the social marketing. The sample consisted of 582 secondary school pupils, the participants ranged in age from 1419. For data analysis the logistic regression was used. The results show that certain people from family and friends in combination with each other have especially large influence on youth’s smoking behaviour. Family members and friends influence young people’s behaviour simultaneously and the influence is cumulative. Knowing what combinations are the most powerful can be considered by preparing tobacco prevention programmes for youth.

Keywords

• social marketing
• smoking prevention
• youth behaviour
• social environment