Correlates of Nicotine Dependence among Urban African American Youth

描述（由申请人提供）：人群之间和人群内的健康差异仍然存在，并且对在烟草使用、尼古丁依赖和相关疾病中观察到的人群差异的原因知之甚少。更重要的是，存在一个年龄种族矛盾，即非洲裔美国青年一贯报告烟草使用的流行率低于白人，但非洲裔美国成年吸烟者遭受烟草相关的发病率和死亡率的不成比例的负担。尼古丁依赖是青少年戒烟的最大障碍。尽管人们认识到尼古丁依赖在戒烟中的核心作用，但关于吸烟青年如何表现尼古丁依赖的信息却很少。出于这些原因，研究人员呼吁进行更多的研究，以解决对青少年尼古丁依赖及其对戒烟影响的文献中的不足理解和差距。因此，我描述了一个计划，以检查尼古丁依赖的关键因素在城市非洲裔美国青年利用个人和团体（类）轨迹分析（研究1）以及混合方法的研究，包括尼古丁依赖，焦点小组，深入访谈（研究2），以阐明青少年尼古丁依赖的复杂性。 公共卫生相关性：非裔美国人因吸烟而承受着最大的死亡和疾病负担。大多数成年人从青少年开始吸烟，尼古丁依赖是戒烟的关键障碍。这个奖项将使我能够检查成人和青少年的尼古丁依赖经历，以更好地了解我们如何帮助非洲裔美国青少年戒烟。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Health disparities continue to exist between and within populations and little is known about the causes of population differences observed in tobacco use, nicotine dependence, and related diseases. More importantly, an age-race paradox exists in which African American youth consistently report lower prevalence of tobacco use than their Caucasian counterparts, yet African American adult smokers suffer a disproportionate burden of tobacco-related morbidity and mortality. Nicotine dependence is the most formidable impediment to quitting smoking among adolescents. Despite the recognition of the central role of nicotine dependence in smoking cessation, there is a paucity of information about how nicotine dependence is expressed among youth who smoke. For these reasons, researchers have called for additional research to address the insufficient understanding of and gap in the literature on adolescent nicotine dependence and its impact on cessation. Thus, I describe a plan to examine critical factors of nicotine dependence among urban African American youth utilizing individual and group (class) trajectory analysis (Study 1) as well as mixed methods research, including a validated measure of nicotine dependence, focus groups, and in-depth interviews (Study 2) to elucidate the complexities of adolescent nicotine dependence. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: African Americans bear the greatest burden of death and illness due to cigarette smoking. Most adults began smoking as adolescents and nicotine dependence is a critical barrier in quitting smoking. This Award will allow me to examine the nicotine dependence experiences of both adults and youth to better understand how we can help African American youth quit smoking.