The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study is a cross-national research study conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Europe and runs on a four-year cycle. In 2014, Ireland participated for the fifth time in the HBSC study (www.nuigalway.ie/hbsc). The overall aims of the HBSC study are to gain new insight into, and increase our understanding of young people’s health and well-being, health behaviours and their social context. HBSC collects data on key indicators of health, health attitudes, and health behaviours, as well as the context of health for young people. The study is a school-based survey with information collected from students through self-completion questionnaires in classrooms. HBSC Ireland 2014 was funded by the Department of Health.

The most recent HBSC Ireland study was conducted in 2014 and included 13,611 school-children from 3rd class in primary school to 5th year in post-primary school. Collectively, 230 primary and post-primary schools across Ireland participated in this study.

This short report provides a descriptive analysis of the 2014 HBSC survey data in regards to tobacco use. The analysis presented below for the 2014 data consists of 1,608 children born in 1998 aged 15 years old (39.8% boys; 60.2% girls) and 3,982 children aged 15 to 17 years old (40.4% boys; 59.6% girls). The analysis is presented by gender and social class. Where overall percentages are included these are weighted to take into account the gender imbalance.