Using the Global Youth Tobacco Survey Bangladesh 2007 data, the prevalence of ever cigarette smoking was reported as 15.8% and the prevalence of smoking as 12.3% among boys who were 13–15 years of age and studying in grades 7–10.
They also found lower education and poverty to be responsible for smoking among Bangladeshi men. Sreeramareddy and others used nine south and south-east Asian countries’ data sets from Demographic and Health Surveys, and found the prevalence of smoking as 60.0% among Bangladeshi men of age 15–54 years in 2007. Using data from 12,155 men aged 15–59 years, Khan and others found the overall prevalence of smoking as 53.6%, with a higher prevalence in slum (59.8%) than non-slum (46.4%) in 2006. For example, Flora and others studied 35,446 individuals aged 18 and 90 years, and found an overall prevalence of smoking as 20.5% during 2001–2003. Although there are studies on the determinants of smoking around the world, in Bangladesh, extant literature has not paid particular focus on the youth section of the population. In different settings, factors associated with cigarette smoking among the youth includes exposure to smokers (elders, parents, friends, teachers), availability of tobacco, low socio-economic status, low self-esteem, poor academic performances. Hence, it is indispensable to restrict the youth from smoking. Higher incidence of smoking among the youth surely hampers the future development. They are the main instruments for future development of the country. Youth is an important age group as healthy youth leads to healthy future. The number of tobacco users, particularly among the youth, is increasing day by day due to availability of cheap tobacco products, poor status of tobacco control regulations, and weak enforcement of such regulations. Therefore, smoking among youth is an alarming issue to be taken care of for the future development of the country.Īccording to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, in Bangladesh, around 22 million people are smoking different types of tobacco products, among them 12% people aged 15–24 years (considered youth in the current study discussed in the Methods section) are consuming some forms of tobacco. Bangladesh is passing through its golden opportunity of demographic dividend where youth remains central to such development. However, the progress could stay behind the desired level due to the use of tobacco among the youth, as the use of tobacco has high impact on growing economy and high expenditure on health. The socio-economic and demographic indicators are progressing in the right path to achieve the desired level of prospective socio-economic development of the country. Identification of modifiable factors will provide the possibilities to prevent smoking among the youth.īangladesh has made a considerable progress in socio-economic and demographic indicators over the last few decades. Therefore, it is imperative to study the factors that are associated with smoking, particularly among the youth, in Bangladesh. The longer duration of smoking creates more miserable conditions to their lives, families, societies and the country, especially for developing country like Bangladesh because cigarette smoking harms almost every organ of human body, causes many diseases, and reduces the health of smokers in general. Due to the prolonged smoking, a wide range of diseases can accelerate the premature morbidity and mortality among the adults.
When people start smoking at an earlier age, the duration of smoking must be longer for the people at adulthood. In the United States, about 90% of all regular smokers begin smoking at or before age 18, and hardly any regular smoker tries the first cigarette outside of childhood. For instance, most of the European people start smoking before the age of 18 and often transit to regular smokers during young adulthood.
Evidences demonstrate that majority of the people try their first cigarette before the age of 18 and become daily smokers in adolescents. Despite having ban on the sales of tobacco to and by minors, particularly those aged <18 years, in Bangladesh national tobacco control law, university male students are found to initiate smoking at an average age of 17.8 years. Cigarette/bidi smoking is the most common form of tobacco use among men in Bangladesh, where 43% of adults use some form of tobacco, 45% of men and only 1.5% of women smoke cigarettes. All forms of tobacco are harmful, and there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco. Globally, more than 7 million people die due to direct tobacco use, and around 1.2 million non-smokers die due to being exposed to second-hand smoke each year. Tobacco use is a significant public health concern.
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