Study: Children of divorce more likely to become smokers

A study published by the Publich Health Journal and conducted by the University of Toronto indicates that adults whose parents divorced were more likely to smoke.

Researchers at the University of Toronto weren't able to prove that children of divorced parents turn to cigarettes as a coping mechanism from lingering childhood trauma. However, they did find that people whose parents had divorced when they were children were at a significantly increased risk of initiating smoking.

"Finding this link between parental divorce and smoking is very disturbing," said lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Sandra Rotman Chair at University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. "We had anticipated that the association between parental divorce and smoking would have been explained by one or more of three plausible factors, such as lower levels of education or adult income among the children of divorce; adult mental health issues, such as depression or anxiety among the children of divorce, or other co-occurring early childhood traumas, such as parental addictions or childhood physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

"Each of these characteristics has been shown in other studies to be linked with smoking initiation. However, even when we took all these factors into account, a strong and significant association between parental divorce and smoking remained."

The research indicated that out of the 19,000 U.S. adults surveyed, the odds of having smoked 100 or more cigarettes increased by 48 percent for sons of divorced or separated parents, and 39 percent for daughters.