Objective: To determine social environmental factors in relation to adolescent smoking using both longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses.
Methods: A national sample of nonsmoking adolescents (N=4,431) who participated in the 1989 Teenage Attitudes and Practices Survey and who were re-interviewed in 1993 was used for this study.
Results: The smoking behavior of best friends and smoking beliefs were consistent and significant factors in predicting adolescents' smoking progression from nonsmoking status to regular smokers or experimental smokers.
Conclusions: By addressing several limitations of previous studies, this paper contributes additional information regarding the adolescents' smoking acquisition process.