This proposal builds upon an existing population-based resource of Mexican American (MA) households created and maintained in the Department of Epidemiology at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and capitalizes upon the experience in studying adolescent smoking trajectories in the Department of Behavioral Science. The specific aims are:
1. Cross-sectional Survey: To identify study participants and to determine susceptiblity to smoking, the baseline prevalence of experimentation with cigarettes and dependent smoking in unrelated adolescents aged 11 to 15 years at enrollment (estimated 2000) from households existing in our population-based infrastructure.
2. Longitudinal Phase: We will systematically follow these adolescents by updating our survey data to assess their progression through the smoking initiation and maintenance continuum from susceptibility to smoking, smoking experimentation, established smoking, through nicotine dependence. We will track participants who quit, as well as those who never try cigarettes, and will assess changes in the psychosocial and contextual factors from baseline in order to investigate their association with experimentation, progression to dependent smoking, quitting, as well as never experimenting.
3. To determine how variations in candidate genes, including those related to nicotine metabolism, dopamine and serotonin receptors and transporters, and genes encoding enzymes involved in synthesis or metabolism of neurotransmitters may influence initiation, establishment of smoking, nicotine dependence, and quitting following experimentation.
4. The long-term goal is to develop quantitative multivariate risk assessment models for experimentation, dependence, and genetic susceptibility to smoking in order to identify high-risk adolescent subgroups. These findings will enable scientists in the future to develop culturally appropriate school- and community-based interventions.
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