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Cultural Factors Affecting Smoking Intentions In Sri Lankan Immigrant Adolescents: An Exploratory Study, Raguragavan Ganeshasundaram, Nadine Henley

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper reports a small exploratory investigation into smoking intentions amongst Sri Lankan immigrant adolescents living in Perth, Western Australia. Four focus group discussions were conducted to explore how cultural values are expressed in this group's beliefs and attitudes towards smoking and non-smoking and how these values may influence their smoking-related behaviour. Females and males attached similar negative values to smoking per se. However, generally, males saw peers' smoking as a way to be cool and popular while females saw peers' smoking as a way to solve stress and other personal problems. Males had strong positive associations with their favourite …