Those who have experienced strongly negative childhood experiences are much more likely to become smokers, according to new research published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study involved 9,215 individuals who were asked whether they had been exposed to any of eight negative experiences.
These included emotional, physical or sexual abuse; having a battered mother; divorced or separated parents; or growing up with a drug abuser, a mentally ill person or having a close family member in jail.
Those who reported five or more of these experiences were on average more than three times more likely to smoke, five times more likely to have begun smoking before the age of 14 and almost three times more likely to be a heavy smoker.