South-East European Research Centre (SEERC)

Bulgaria has alarmingly high smoking rates in adolescents. Previous research found that normative influences explain why some adolescents start smoking and some others not. Surprisingly, research on smoking in Bulgarian adolescents showed that social factors are not associated with the risk to become a smoker (Anachkova, Redding, & Rossi, 2006). However, an exploratory survey with 492 Bulgarian adolescents aged 12 to 16 demonstrated that Bulgarian adolescents are extensively exposed to smoking in various settings, that smoking students observe more frequent smoking in their environment and that social factors are related to the intentions of non-smoking adolescents to start smoking. Subsequent research with refined measures is proposed to reduce the limitations of the exploratory study, and to shed light on how normative is smoking in Bulgaria, which are the anti-smoking influences in the environment, and how exact is the knowledge about the risks of smoking in Bulgarian adolescents.