The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Tobacco use is crossing miles to become the major cause of death and disability. Lack of local data on tobacco use and much needed interventions for control geared us up to find out prevalence and pattern of tobacco use.

Methods: A cross sectional study with two stage methodology involving PPS, Stratified and Simple Random Sampling techniques was used. In each of the 30 clusters, 40 households were surveyed using a pre tested, semi-structured proforma.

Results: 4119 individuals above 10 years age comprising 47% women and 53% men studied. Overall tobacco use was 28.7% with a significant gender difference of 44.5% men against 10.9% women using tobacco. 7.4% of the adolescents used tobacco. Among men, 24.1% smoked, 24.2% chewed and 0.6% used snuff as a form of tobacco. Median age at tobacco use initiation was early twenties in either gender and even lesser in men using gutkha at 18 years. Average duration of smoking was 20.1±12.4 (mean±SD) years and of chewing and snuff use was 12.3±11.4 and 16.7±13.2 years respectively. Tobacco use increased with increasing age and decreased with increasing education in either gender. Tobacco use was higher in unskilled workers as compared to skilled workers among men and was higher in those working for more than 9 hours a day. Among women awareness levels of risks associated were lower among users (44.8%). Among men, awareness of associated risks were similar in users and non-users (around three-fourths).