Brief report Clinical correlates of heavy tobacco use among adolescents Jack R. Cornelius*, Kevin Lynch, Christopher S. Martin, Marie D. Cornelius, Duncan B. Clark Department of Psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA Abstract The primary aim of this study was to determine the clinical factors differentiating adolescents with heavy smoking (  10 cigarettes/day) from adolescents with light smoking. This study involved a study group of 812 adolescents recruited from adolescent alcoholism treatment centers and from the community. Logistic regression analyses demonstrated that adolescents with heavy smoking, compared with adolescents with light smoking, were significantly more likely to demonstrate Caucasian American ethnicity, drug-use disorders, alcohol-use disorders, and conduct disorder. Our findings suggest that the clinical correlates of heavy smoking among adolescents are generally similar to those for smoking at any level (vs. nonsmokers), except that heavy smoking is more strongly associated with Caucasian American ethnicity. Also, depressive disorders were associated with smoking at any level in our sample, but depressive disorders were not associated with heavy smoking. D 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Adolescents; Smoking; Correlates 1. Introduction Most smokers begin their cigarette use during their teenage years (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1989). While initiation of smoking among adolescents has been studied extensively, factors associated with heavy smoking ( > 10 cigarettes/day) among adolescents have received little attention. Studies on the prevalence of adolescents' use of various substances have shown that use of tobacco and other substances proceed along * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-412-624-2636; fax: +1-412-624-0850. E-mail address: jcornel@pitt.edu (J.R. Cornelius). Addictive Behaviors 26 (2001) 273 ± 277 0306-4603/01/$ ± see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0306-4603(00)00088-5