Tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among urban low socioeconomic women in Mumbai, India

Abstract

Context:Tobacco use is an important health issue globally. It is responsible for a large number of diseases and deaths in India. Female tobacco users have additional health risks.Aims:The aim was to assess changes in pre and post-intervention tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among women from urban low socioeconomic strata, after three rounds of interventions.Subjects and Methods:A structured questionnaire was used to interview women living in low socioeconomic housing clusters in Mumbai, regarding their tobacco consumption, attitudes, and practices, by Medical Social Workers. These data were entered into IBM SPSS Statistics, version 20 and analysed. Interventions for tobacco cessation were provided 3 times over a span of 9 months, comprising of health education and counseling. Post-intervention questionnaire was introduced at 12 months.Results:There was statistically significant improvement in the knowledge of women, following the interventions, with particular reference to poor oral hygiene and tobacco use being main cause of oral cancer (P = 0.007), knowledge of ill effects of second hand smoke (P = 0.0001), knowledge about possibility of early detection of oral cancer (P = 0.0001), perception of pictorial and written warnings on tobacco products (P = 0.0001), and availability of help for quitting tobacco (P = 0.024).Conclusion:The prevalence of smokeless tobacco use is very high among urban women from lower socioeconomic strata. Therefore, tobacco awareness programs and tobacco cessation services tailor made for this group of women must be planned and implemented.

An examination of the effectiveness of health warning labels on smokeless tobacco products in four states in India: findings from the TCP India cohort survey

“…The results from this study confirm those of other studies in India in which HWLs have low levels of noticing and effectiveness [14, 30, 31, 34]. There are a number of possible reasons for this low level of effectiveness.…”

“…Despite the considerable evidence base linking SLT use with adverse health outcomes, knowledge of the health effects of SLT remains low [6, 13, 14]. Added to this, there are many misconceptions about SLT, including the belief among many that SLT can be used for health purposes, such as cleansing their teeth and to relieve stress and other health ailments.…”

Awareness of Tobacco-Related Health Harms among Vulnerable Populations in Bangladesh: Findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Bangladesh Survey

“…Our results are also consistent with previous studies examining awareness of the harmful effects of tobacco use among tobacco users. Findings from both HICs and LMICs indicate that educational attainment and income are associated with knowledge of tobacco’s harmful effects [ 5 , 21 , 22 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 29 , 31 , 38 ]. This study extends those findings, noting a more general effect of lower health knowledge among vulnerable groups irrespective of tobacco use.…”

“…Based on these findings, it is not possible to assess whether improving the life circumstances of vulnerable groups will provide them with better skills to protect their health. However, a small intervention study of women living in one of Mumbai’s urban slums found that knowledge of the harms of tobacco increased following participation in the educational intervention [ 38 ].…”

Trends in mouth cancer incidence in Mumbai, India (1995⿿2009): An age-period-cohort analysis

“…However, to date the enforcement of these policies has been weak to moderate [7] which is reflected in the increasing trend observed in our study especially among young adults. Increased awareness regarding tobacco use and oral cancer risk has been recently reported among urban slum women of Mumbai [35] , which could have an effect in future trends.…”