Piece by Piece: Making Health Connections is a research project focused on understanding how health-related behaviors develop during adolescence and the transition to young adulthood. Our focus is on behaviors that promote health and well-being as well as on those that can harm health. Our primary area of study is cigarette smoking – answering the questions of why some teenagers never smoke; why some try and then easily stop; and why others try and continue to smoke or become addicted. In order to answer these basic questions about smoking, we need a better understanding of how cigarettes fit into the lives of teenagers and their families, and how smoking affects the social, emotional, and physical lives of teens.

This research program is led by Dr. Robin Mermelstein and her colleagues at the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This research program is funded by the National Cancer Institute grant #CA98262.