[Smoking prevalence and associated factors among public high school students in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2002].

Smoking is the second cause of death in the world. It currently accounts for one out of ten deaths in adults worldwide (5 million per year). If current patterns persist, smoking will cause 10 million deaths a year by 2020 according to the World Health Organization. A prevalence study on smoking habits was conducted in 2002 among 459 students from eight public high schools in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. This study aimed to measure smoking prevalence and related factors by multivariate logistic regression. The overall smoking prevalence rate in the sample was 18% (95%CI: 14.6-21.7), and the students had begun smoking at a mean age of 14 years. Students from public high schools had begun smoking early, influenced by friends who smoked (OR = 4.37; p = 0.000), family income (OR = 2.04; p = 0.013), and age (OR = 1.86; p = 0.031). It is thus crucial to adopt measures to prevent adolescents' access to smoking.