prevalence rate and individual, familial and social characteristics associated

three millions people die related to smoking every year. twelve million smokers are reported in iran. the studies show that smoking is an important factor which causes cardio – vascular and respiratory diseases. its role in cancer diseases is strongly confirmed. the social and economical effects of smoking also are considerable. in this study 192 preuniversity students in bahaman city (province of khuzestan, south of iran) were interviewed to identify rate of smokers and factors influencing smoking behavior in 2002 to 2003. the results show that %36.5 of students were smoker. and also having smoker friends (p=0.01) and parental disputes (p=0.003) are significant factors for the rate of smoking among students. job and education level of parents are not statistically significant with the smoking behavior among students. overall results of this study show a strong significant relationship among, peer influence, parental disputes, and prevalence of smoking in preuniversity students. considering the finding more than one third of subjects were smoker, it is necessary to imprive knowledge and promote health beliefs for quite smoking and nonsmoking through suggesting suitable educational and counseling programs.