Tobacco use is dramatically increasing among youth. Growing attention has been addressed towards possible predictors of smoking in such a population. We evaluated a sample of Italian adolescents to verify whether adults and peers might influence their smoking status. Cross-sectional study was conducted in 16 schools of North Italy. Data were collected from 2001 to 2010 by means of a self-administered questionnaire on sociodemographic data and individual/social possible predictors of smoking. 2,444 students (56.7% boys; 43.3% girls; mean = 14.32？±？1.384 years) were analysed. 607 (24.8%) were current smokers; 1,837 (75.2%) were nonsmokers. The presence of smokers in the family, seeing teachers who smoke, the influence of friends, and the feeling of inferiority were predictors of youth smoking as well as unawareness of nicotine dangerous action to health. Running the logistic multivariate analysis with all the variables listed above in the same model, the strongest predictors of smoking were as follows: being unaware that pipe/cigar is harmful to health as cigarettes; not knowing that passive smoking is harmful to the growth of children; having seen teachers smoking. The present findings help to identify the variables that might favour smoking in youth. Such variables should become the target of prevention programs. 1. Introduction Tobacco use is one of the major preventable causes of death in the world. The World Health Organization attributes over four million deaths a year to tobacco and this figure is expected to rise to 10 million by 2030. In the developed countries, tobacco use is dramatically increasing among youth; the phenomenon has been described as a “paediatric disease” and a “paediatric epidemic”. Nearly 25% of students aged 13–15 years smoke and have smoked their first cigarette before the age of 10 [1]. If this pattern continues, tobacco use will result in the deaths of 250 million children and young people alive today. Moreover, cigarette smoking has a high morbidity in young people causing upper respiratory tract infections, reduced lung growth, and retardation in the level of maximum lung function. Of particular concern is also the association with health risk behaviours, including high-risk sexual behaviour and substances use [2]. Finally, individuals who begin smoking at a young age are more likely to develop high nicotine dependence than those who start later [3]; this would indicate a greater chance of smoking through adulthood [4]. In this framework, sophisticated programs of youth behaviour surveillance, including tobacco use, have
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