Becklake and colleagues investigated these and other possible predictors of teenage cigarette smoking and found that salivary cotinine, a measure of uptake of environmental tobacco smoke, was a significant predictor.
It is possible that efficient absorption in childhood of nicotine from second-hand tobacco smoke renders adolescents susceptible to nicotine-seeking behaviour.
In a related commentary, Anthonisen and Murray wonder whether such findings mean that future anti-smoking interventions will be directed at susceptible subpopulations rather than the population at large.
p. 377 Childhood predictors of smoking in adolescence: a follow-up study of Montreal schoolchildren
– M.R. Becklake et al
http://www.cmaj.ca/misc/press/pg377.pdf
p. 382 A new childhood pathway for transmission of an increased likelihood of smoking?
– N. Anthonisen, R. Murray
http://www.cmaj.ca/misc/press/pg382.pdf
Canadian Medical Association Journal