Measuring Cigarette Smoking Behavior Progression with Cross-Sectional Data

描述(申请人提供)：美国几十年的烟草研究和控制留下了大量的国家和地方层面的横断面调查数据。典型的数据来源包括自1975年以来的青年风险行为调查、自1984年以来的行为风险因素调查、自1971年以来的国家健康和营养检查调查、自1957年以来的全国健康访谈调查、自1975年以来的监测未来研究、自1971年以来的全国药物使用和健康调查以及加州青年烟草调查。这些包含数百万随机抽样对象的多源多年数据构成了一项无价资产，对这些数据的进一步探索将有助于烟草控制实现《2010年健康人报告》提出的目标。有效规划和评估烟草控制计划将受益于吸烟行为变化的数据(例如，从不吸烟者到吸烟者、从吸烟者到戒烟者以及从戒烟者向后再吸烟者)，因为这些数据比传统上使用的终生吸烟者或30天吸烟者的流行率更具信息性。衡量吸烟行为变化需要纵向数据，而每年在州和地方各级收集纵向数据往往过于昂贵和复杂。我们的分析表明，横截面数据包含了所需的纵向信息；但仍然存在的挑战是如何从数据中提取信息。通过长期的合作，该项目的研究人员已经认识到，来自工程和系统控制领域的概率离散事件系统(PDES)可以适应这一挑战。遵循香农的抽样原则，偏微分方程技术已成功地应用于用横断面数据模拟复杂的人机交互作用。本研究的目的是将这种方法用于模拟吸烟行为。这项研究的四个目标是：(1)用节省成本的横断面数据建立能够评估吸烟行为进展的PDES吸烟行为模型；(2)分析常见控烟计划(如税收、烟草销售和使用限制、校本计划和戒烟)对吸烟行为进展的影响；(3)预测吸烟趋势并模拟与2010年健康人设定的控烟目标直接相关的不同控烟情景；以及(4)开发将PDES方法计算机化的软件，用于烟草研究和控烟实践。将使用全国毒品使用与健康调查的十年数据(1995-2004)来测试所提出的方法。然后将利用纵向数据(例如1997年全国青年纵向调查)进一步验证该方法。已经建立了一个在烟草研究和系统控制方面具有专业知识的合作研究小组，能够很好地开展这一项目。这项拟议的研究与公共卫生完全相关，因为预期的结果将为推进现有的烟草研究和加强国家烟草控制战略提供必要的技术和数据。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Several decades of tobacco research and control in the U.S. have left a large amount of cross-sectional survey data at the national and the local levels. Typical data sources include the Youth Risk Behavioral Survey since 1975, the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey since 1984, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey since 1971, the National Health Interview Survey since 1957, the Monitoring the Future Studies since 1975, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health since 1971, and the California Youth Tobacco Survey. These multisource multi-year data with millions of randomly sampled subjects consist of an invaluable asset and further exploration of the data would benefit tobacco control to reach the objectives set forth by the Healthy People 2010. Effective planning and evaluation of tobacco control programs will benefit from data on smoking behavior change (e.g., from nonsmokers to smokers, from smokers to quitters and from quitters backward to smokers again), because such data are more informative than the conventionally used prevalence rates of lifetime smokers or 30-day smokers. Measuring smoking behavior change requires longitudinal data and collecting longitudinal data at the state and local levels year by year are often too costly and too complex. Our analyses indicate that cross-sectional data contain the needed longitudinal information; but a challenge remaining is how to extract the information out of the data. Through a long-term of collaboration, the investigators of this project have recognized that the Probability Discrete Event System (PDES) from the engineering and system control field can be adapted to overcome this challenge. Following Shannon's sampling principles, the PDES technique has been successfully used in modeling sophisticated machine-human interactions with cross-sectional data. The goal of this study is to adapt this method for modeling smoking behavior. The four aims of this research are: (1) to establish a PDES smoking behavior model capable of assessing smoking behavior progression with cost-saving cross-sectional data; (2) to analyze effect of common tobacco control programs (e.g., taxation, restriction of sales and use of tobacco, school-based programs and tobacco cessation) on smoking behavior progression; (3) to predict smoking trends and to simulate different tobacco control scenarios that are directly related to the tobacco control objectives set by the Healthy People 2010; and (4) to develop software that computerizes the PDES method for tobacco research and tobacco control practice. Ten-year data (1995-2004) from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health will be used to test the proposed method. The method will then be further validated with longitudinal data (e.g. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997). A collaborative research team with expertise in tobacco research and system control has been established is well positioned to carry out this project. This proposed research is completely relevant to public health, because the expected results will provide needed techniques and data for advancing the existing tobacco research and strengthening the tobacco control strategies in the nation.