Ethnic Disparities in Youth Access to Tobacco: California Statewide Results, 1999-2003 Hope Landrine, PhD Irma Corral, MS, MPH Elizabeth A. Klonoff, PhD Jennifer Jensen, MPH Kennon Kashima, PhD Norval Hickman, MS, MPH Jonathan Martinez, MS variables entailed in children’s desire to smoke (Pentz, Bonnie, & Shopland, 1996; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 1994). Studies indicate that supply (i.e., actual or perceived high access to tobacco) may be as strong a predictor of youth smoking as demand and may be the strongest predictor of initial smoking among youths (e.g., DHHS, 1994; Klonoff & Landrine, 2004; Landrine & Klonoff, 2003; Robinson, Klesges, Zbikowski, & Glaser, 1997). For example, in a study of more than 6,000 youths, Robinson et al. (1997) found that perceived easy access to cigarettes was the best predictor of youth experimentation with smoking and indeed was a better predictor than well-known demand variables such as peer and parental smoking. Efforts to prevent youth smoking thereby focus on reducing youth supply and/or demand, with data sug- gesting that supply-side interventions may be more cost-effective (e.g., Di Franza, 2005; DiFranza & Dussault, 2005; DiFranza, Peck, Radecki, & Savageau, 2001; Forster et al., 1998). Moreover, each day, 3000- 4000 youths become regular smokers and hence become the next generation of adult smokers (DHHS, 1994). Reducing youth access to tobacco is one strategy that might prevent some percentage of current youth and so of future adult smoking (Forster & Wolfson, The authors examined the role of youth ethnicity in youth access to tobacco with large, random samples of stores and large samples of ethnically diverse youths for the first time. From 1999 through 2003, White, Black, Latino, and Asian youths made 3,361 cigarette purchase attempts (approximately 700 per year) statewide. Analyses revealed that Black youths had sig- nificantly higher access than other youths and that access rates for Black and Asian (but not Latino or White) youths exceeded the Synar-mandated ≤ 20%. Clerks who failed to demand youth proof of age identi- fication (ID) sold 95% of the tobacco that youths received and sold significantly more often to minorities and to girls, whereas clerks who demanded youth ID sold equally infrequently to all youths. These findings highlight significant ethnic disparities in youth access to tobacco and imply that those might be eliminated by policies and interventions that increase clerk demands for youth ID. Keywords: youth access to tobacco; ethnic disparities; smoking; primary prevention S moking among youths (12- to 17-year-olds) can be understood as a function of supply and demand, where supply refers to youth access to (ability to acquire) cigarettes and demand refers to the psychosocial Health Promotion Practice Month XXXX Vol. XX, No. XX, xx-xx DOI: 10.1177/1524839908317230 © 2008 Society for Public Health Education Authors’ Note: This study was supported by funds provided by National Cancer Institute Grants No. 1-U56-CA92079-01A1, 5F31-CA110213-01, and 5F31-CA103135-03; by Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program Grant No. 9RT-0043 and 15 AT-1300; and by California Department of Health Services Tobacco Control Section Grants 94-20962 and 96-26617. Please address correspondence to Hope Landrine, PhD, American Cancer Society, 250 Williams Street, Atlanta, GA 30303; phone: (404) 329-4425; e-mail: Hope.Landrine@cancer.org. 1 Health Promot Pract OnlineFirst, published on May 14, 2008 as doi:10.1177/1524839908317230 Copyright 2008 by Society for Public Health Education.