Acknowledgements We thank all participants, the complete staff at the NAKO study centers, the data management and integration center, and the NAKO head office who enabled the conduction of the study and made the collection of all data possible
First, we examine whetherliving with a parent who smokes when a child is aged 9 or 13 years (childhood and early adolescence) increases the risk of subsequent teenage substance use (cigarettes, e-cigarettes, alcohol and other drug use) at age 17/18 years, and, if yes, whether this risk differs if one or both parents smoke when the child is aged 9 or 13 years, and whether the risk increases when each parent is reported smoking at 9 and 13 years
In this study the authors reason that potential racial differences in nicotine metabolism and susceptibility to smoking between the Taiwanese populations they examined versus ethnically different populations from the other investigations, may account for the discrepancy
There is certainly an association, but there are four distinct possibilities with respect to causality: Mental health problems cause people to smoke