ESRC Society Today

Cigarette smoking is a major cause of ill health and premature death in the UK. The prospects for reducing the health costs of smoking turn on reducing the proportion of the adult population who smoke. Most of these smokers have been smoking since adolescence. Most, too, come from poorer socio-economic groups. The project is designed to improve understanding of the relationship between social disadvantage and persistent smoking over the lifetime of adults who are now in their 40s. Its objectives are to investigate how the link between social disadvantage and persistent smoking develops from childhood, through adolescence and early adulthood and into midlife. Among the questions it will address are whether disadvantage is more important at some life stages than at others and the role played by education in this process. Whether those smoking heavily when they are young are more likely to persist with smoking into midlife. The project will be based on the 1958 birth cohort study, a large national study which has been following children born in 1958. Information on their lives has been collected at regular intervals and the most recent information (at age 41) is about to become available. This is therefore an ideal time to examine how social disadvantage over the lifecourse contributes to smoking careers in midlife. Findings from the project will be fed into the evidence base for policies to tackle the link between social disadvantage and adult smoking

Award/Grant Outputs and Documents
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