Tobacco use in India: prevalence and predictors of smoking and chewing in a national cross sectional household survey

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the prevalence and the socioeconomic and demographic correlates of tobacco consumption in India. Design: Cross sectional, nationally representative population based household survey. Subjects: 315 598 individuals 15 years or older from 91 196 households were sampled in National Family Health Survey-2 (1998-99). Data on tobacco consumption were elicited from household informants. Measures and methods: Prevalence of current smoking and current chewing of tobacco were used as outcome measures. Simple and two way cross tabulations and multivariate logistic regression analysis were the main analytical methods. Results: Thirty per cent of the population 15 years or older-47% men and 14% of women-either smoked or chewed tobacco, which translates to almost 195 million people-154 million men and 41million women in India. However, the prevalence may be underestimated by almost 11% and 1.5% for chewing tobacco among men and women, respectively, and by 5% and 0.5% for smoking among men and women, respectively, because of use of household informants. Tobacco consumption was significantly higher in poor, less educated, scheduled castes and scheduled tribe populations. The prevalence of tobacco consumption increased up to the age of 50 years and then levelled or declined. The prevalence of smoking and chewing also varied widely between different states and had a strong association with individual's sociocultural characteristics. Conclusion: The findings of the study highlight that an agenda to improve health outcomes among the poor in India must include effective interventions to control tobacco use. Failure to do so would most likely result in doubling the burden of diseases-both communicable and non-communicable-among India's teeming poor. There is a need for periodical surveys using more consistent definitions of tobacco use and eliciting information on different types of tobacco consumed. The study also suggests a need to adjust the prevalence estimates based on household informants

Prevalence and Correlation of Oral Lesions among Tobacco Smokers, Tobacco Chewers, Areca Nut and Alcohol Users

“…The prevalence of adverse oral habits was found to be much higher in males as compared to females in this study and is in accordance with the other studies (Jaber et al, 1999;Rani et al, 2003;Saraswathi et al, 2006;). The consumption of alcohol was 1.3% which was the lowest compared to other habits and coincides with a study performed in Hubli India (Aruna et al, 2011).…”

“…In South India chewing betel quid/ paan (betel leaf enclosing sliced areca nut, catechu, lime and various other spices which may or may not contain tobacco) (Warnakulasuriya et al, 2002;Rani et al, 2003;Aruna et al, 2011) is a common habit but the evidence for cancer occurrence due to this habit without tobacco is limited (Znaor et al, 2003;Lee et al, 2005). 'Quid' has been defined as ' a substance or mixture of substances, placed in the mouth or chewed and remaining in contact with the mucosa usually containing one or both of the two basic ingredients, tobacco and/or areca nut, in raw or any manufactured of processed form (Mehta , 1993;Jacob et al, 2004;Lee et al, 2005).…”

“…Gutka is a mixture of powdered tobacco, areca nut, and slaked lime (aqueous calcium hydroxide). Some other forms of smokeless tobacco products commonly used in the Indian subcontinent are khaini, zarda which are mixtures of powdered tobacco and slaked lime and mishri a powdered form of tobacco which is rubbed on the gums (Rani et al, 2003;Javed et al, 2010). According to a re-evaluation in 2004 by the International Agency for Research of Cancer both betel quid and areca nut have been considered to be Group 1 or 'carcinogenic to humans' (Jacob et al, 2004;Lee et al, 2005).…”

Multiple Approaches and Participation Rate for a Community Based Smoking Cessation Intervention Trial in Rural Kerala, India

“…Radhakrishnan Jayakrishnan 1,2 *, Aleyamma Mathew 2 , Antti Uutela 3 , Anssi Auvinen 1 , Paul Sebastian 2 social class when compared to urban and high socioeconomic groups (Rani et al, 2003). The health impact of smoking is enormous considering the wide spectrum of diseases associated with it.…”

Impact of Tobacco on Glutathione S Transferase Gene Loci of Indian Ethnics

“…In this study, we investigated the impact of tobacco usage on drug/Xenobiotic compound metabolizing GST gene loci mutation. The age old customary habituate of high tobacco usage among Gujarat population was considered as the suitable subject for the study among Indian ethnics reported earlier (Rani et al, 2003). Further we compared the frequency rate of GST polymorphism among the subjects with the low tobacco using other populations within India, reported by various investigators (Roy et al, 1998;Buch et al, 2001;Mishra 5038 et al, 2004;Naveen et al, 2004;Vetriselvi et al, 2006;Konwar et al, 2010).…”