"Most teens smoke because their friends are doing it," said Dr. Jennifer B. Unger of the University of Southern California School of Medicine. "However, teens from more collectivistic, family-oriented cultures may be less influenced by their friends' behavior, compared with whites."

For the study, Unger and colleagues interviewed 5, 000 California 8th-graders. The researchers found that 70 percent of Hispanics and multiethnic adolescents were at risk of smoking, compared to 60 percent of whites and less than 50 percent of Asian-Americans. Hispanics and multiethnic youths were also the most likely to be current smokers; African-American youth were the least likely to be active smokers.

Unger said the study' findings could be beneficial for designing smoking cessation and prevention programs for adolescents. "These results support the hypothesis that peer influences on adolescent smoking vary by ethnicity," the researchers wrote. "Our society is becoming more and more multicultural. We can't continue to design our health-promotion programs with just U.S.-born whites in mind. We need to consider the cultural values of multiple cultures."

The report is published in the June issue of Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

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