HPA's Youth Insights Survey (YIS) monitors Year 10 students’ behaviours, attitudes and knowledge on a range of tobacco-related topics, including their perceived access to tobacco.
Methodology
Participants in the 2014 YIS were asked whether they thought they could get cigarettes or tobacco from anyone in their family/whānau or home, from their friends, or from a shop, if they wanted to. The response categories were ‘definitely not’, ‘probably not’, ‘probably yes’ and ‘definitely yes’.
Univariate regression analyses were conducted first to assess whether perceived access to tobacco from each source (dependent variable) was associated with any of the independent variables (gender, ethnicity, school decile status, own smoking status, family smoking status and friends’ smoking status; see the ‘About the Youth Insights Survey’ section for more detail and relevant comparison groups). A multivariate regression analysis was then conducted to assess which variables were still associated with perceived access after adjusting for all others.
Further analyses were also undertaken to examine changes over time. Perceived access to tobacco from family/whānau or home and from friends was also asked in the 2010 and 2012 surveys. Perceived access from shops was previously asked in 2012 only.
Key Results
• The minority of young people thought they would be able to access tobacco from their family/whānau or home, friends, or from a shop such as a dairy. Of these, friends were perceived as the most likely source of tobacco.
• Young people were less likely to think they would be able to get cigarettes/tobacco from a shop in 2014 compared with in 2012.
• Perceived ease of access to cigarettes/tobacco from family/whānau or home, or from friends in 2014, was unchanged from 2012, but perceived as more difficult compared with 2010.
• Current smokers were more likely than ex/experimental smokers and never smokers to think they would be able to access cigarettes/tobacco from all three sources.
• Māori were more likely than non-Māori to perceive that they would be able to access tobacco from their family/whānau or home.
• Respondents who reported that at least one of their five closest friends smoked were more likely to perceive that they would be able to access tobacco from their friends or from a shop compared with those who had no close friends who smoked.