Oh et al. BMC Public Health 2010, 10:74 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/74 Table 3 Reasons reported for smoking initiation among ever smokers, weighted.* My friends smoked Smoking made me look more cool My friends approved of my smoking It helped me manage my stress My family members smoked I was not worried about health effects I believed I could quit whenever I wanted to Tobacco advertising was attractive to me Weight concerns I was less depressed when I smoked My parents did not mind that I smoked Other All (n = 2378) % 62.3 25.5 6.9 6.8 6.1 5.9 5.6 1.7 1.5 1.5 0.6 15.6 France (n = 467) % 67.7 14.2 5.5 8.9 6.1 0.4 0.7 1.4 1.0 1.5 0.4 11.4 Ireland (n = 519) % 65.4 35.4 16.3 8.1 11.1 21.1 18.2 4.6 5.0 1.7 0.5 14.5 Italy (n = 474) % 58.6 19.4 0.9 7.2 6.4 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.4 2.4 0.6 24.5 Czech Republic (n = 429) % 61.3 28.1 10.3 7.6 4.6 0.9 4.1 0.4 0.4 1.1 0.5 13.3 Sweden (n = 489) % 58.3 27.6 0.6 2.6 1.7 3.0 1.8 1.0 0.2 0.8 1.1 14.2 Page 6 of 11 c2 p-value 0.0152 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.0021 <0.0001 <0.0001 <0.0001 <0.0001 <0.0001 0.4108 0.7187 <0.0001 *Participants were allowed to list more than one reason for smoking initiation. socioeconomic status (SES), and smoking initiation from Europe and other parts of the world [14-16,36-41]. Our findings could have partly been due the way the data were collected. Instead of asking for what level of education had been achieved, participants were asked how old they were when they completed their educa- tion. As individuals can complete different levels of edu- cation at different ages, this may have made our education groups more similar in terms of actual educa- tion level and biased the results toward the null. Also, since income can be a sensitive topic, there may have been reporting bias. The distribution of income levels Table 4 Distribution of age at smoking initiation by country, weighted. was not as we expected; there was a disproportionate number of Italian women who reported having income well below the median and a disproportionate number of Czech women who reported having income around the median. This may be an indication that the way the question was asked made the responses subjective. There was a considerable amount of variation in the response rate between countries. Only 41.4% of women in Italy and 30.6% of women in the Czech Republic con- tacted who were eligible for participation agreed to par- ticipate. This may be another reason why the income distribution for these two countries was skewed. Our All (n = 2364) 18.2 France (n = 461) 18.1 Ireland (n = 515) 17.9 Italy (n = 472) 18.6 Czech Republic (n = 427) 19.6 Sweden (n = 489) 17.1 Mean age at initiation (ANOVA p-value < 0.01) Range and quartile distribution of age at initiation Maximum 75% quartile Median 25% quartile Minimum Age at initiation <14 14-15 16-17 18-19 20-21 22-23 24-25 26-27 28-29 30+ 60 20 17 15 10 6.8% 20.7% 24.7% 20.4% 13.3% 4.0% 3.7% 1.0% 0.8% 4.6% 50 19 17 16 11 3.2% 18.1% 29.6% 24.7% 12.7% 3.4% 2.6% 0.8% 0.7% 4.2% 50 20 17 15 10 9.0% 20.2% 23.2% 21.5% 13.0% 3.7% 4.6% 0.7% 1.0% 3.1% 55 20 18 15 12 6.0% 19.7% 22.6% 20.6% 14.3% 5.1% 4.0% 1.1% 0.4% 6.2% 60 20 18 16 10 1.4% 13.7% 25.9% 20.6% 18.2% 3.9% 4.8% 1.9% 0.9% 8.7% 45 18 16 14 11 12.0% 29.3% 23.4% 15.6% 9.6% 3.7% 2.6% 0.9% 1.0% 2.0%