The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: To estimate the initiation rate and the smoking prevalence for 13-15 years-old boys and girls, a school survey at 14 Brazilian cities was conducted, using the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) methodology .

Methods: This survey is developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in partnership with the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO). The questionnaire is composed of the 56 core questions plus 14 added by Brazilian staff. Additional information about the Global Youth Tobacco Survey is available on CDC's website 3. GYTS generated representative data from students of 15 Brazilian cities.

Results: Girls living in Porto Alegre presented the highest smoking point prevalence rate among all individuals included in this analysis whereas the lowest smoking point prevalence rate was observed among boys living in João Pessoa. It is noteworthy saying that the highest and lowest overall smoking point prevalence rate were observed, respectively, in Fortaleza and João Pessoa, although smoking point prevalence rates by gender were similar.

Southern Brazilian region, represented in this study by three cities - Curitiba, Florianópolis and Curitiba – was the only region that presented city-specific sex ratios below 1.0 which were statistically significant at level 5%; these results indicated the higher smoking prevalence among girls aged between 13 and 15 years old located in southern Brazil.