Objective:

To identify factors associated with susceptibility, tobacco use and addiction in young people from 13 to 15 years of age, to determine conditions of risk and identify possible correlates to the development of public policies on smoking in Costa Rica.

Materials and methods:

Information available from the four rounds of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) Costa Rica was used. It was based on a sample size of 11 540 youngsters from public and private schools. Indicators of interest and logistic regression models for smoking, susceptibility and addiction were estimated.

Results:

The prevalence of current consumption shows a significant decrease over the 14 years of the study (17.3% in 1999 and 5.0% in 2013) and, to a lesser intensity, in the index of smoking susceptibility (19.3% in 1999 and 12.4% in 2013). The proportion of young people with addiction has shown a significant increase in the same period.

Conclusions:

The conditions that explained the significant reduction in smoking prevalence and less susceptibility must be maintained and deepened to achieve full compliance of the MPower measures.

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