The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: in this article, we examined six birth cohortsx sex smoking prevalence ratio obtained from Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) and Brazilian National Survey on Risk Factors (BNSRF). Smoking initiation prevention summarizes in themselves social, cultural and psychological principles that can influence attitudes and behaviors of individuals

Methods: birth cohort data were derived from a cross-sectional population-based random sample and collected by means of household interviews; all individuals aged 15 years and older living in Northeast and South Brazilian regions were eligible to participate. A log-binomial regression model was used to obtain age-adjusted sex-ratio smoking prevalence. Smoking status was defined as having smoked at least one cigarette in the last week and having initiated smoking before 17 years old; birth cohorts were calculated for individuals aged 22-26, 32-36, 42-46, 52-56, 62-66, considering 12-16 years old students from GYTS as baseline

Results: information on smoking prevalence was available for 7455 individuals in GYTS and 7659 individuals in BNSRF. The overall GYTS smoking prevalence rates were in Northeast region: men, 5.1%, women, 3.8%; in South region; men, 6.1%, women 7.3%. Regarding birth cohorts, crude sex smoking prevalence ratio for Northeast and South region were, respectively, in 22-26: 2.5 and 1.3; in 32-36: 1.9 and 1.2; in 42-46: 1.4 and 1.5; in 52-56: 2.2 and 2.0; in 62-66: 1.2 and 3.5. Age-adjusted sex-ratio confirmed above cited results. Notwithstanding the possibility of cross-sectional biases, in South region (not in North region) over the years young smokers seem to include a higher proportion of women.