The authors report levels of intercommunity variation in rates of cigarette smoking observed
during the course of an evaluation of the influence of three mass media campaigns on the initi
ation of adolescent cigarette smoking. Despite careful design and statistical adjustment for a set
of 10 known sociodemographic and personality correlates of adolescent cigarette smoking, high
intercommunity variation precluded the detection of media campaign effects in this study. The
authors discuss the general implications of high intercommunity variation for studies using the
individual as the unit of analysis when the unit of randomization is the community.
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