Prevalence and correlates of tobacco use: A cross- sectional study from rural Haryana, India

Pages: 364-368
R. B. Jain (Department of Community Medicine PGIMS, Rohtak, Haryana)
Anand Kumar Sharma (Department of Physiology MMMC&H, Kumarhatti, Solan, H.P.)
Sami Magray (Department of Pharmacology MMMC&H, Kumarhatti, Solan, H.P.)
Sumit Chawla (Department of Community Medicine MMMC&H, Kumarhatti, Solan, H.P.)
Bharti (SMO, WHO)
Inderjeet Singh and Vikas Gupta (Department of Community Medicine PGIMS, Rohtak, Haryana)

Tobacco use is today’s major public health concern in our country, which can be largely reduced by primordial and primary prevention. According to NFHS III, 57% of men and 10.8% of women use any kind of tobacco in India. To determine the prevalence and correlates of tobacco use among the rural community of block Beri, district Jhajjar, Haryana. This cross-sectional study was carried out during the period of September 2012 to August 2013.Multistage random sampling was used in this study. Asample size of 1080 was included in the study Appropriate statistical tests were used for analysis. The overall prevalence of current tobacco use was found to be 26.9% (tobacco-smoking: 26.4%; tobacco-smokeless: 2.7%) and it was found to be higher among males as 46.7% (tobacco-smoking: 46.3%; tobacco-smokeless: 4.4%) than7.2% in females (tobacco-smoking: 6.5%; tobacco-smokeless: 0.9%). Our study confirmed the high burden of tobacco use in rural areas and reiterated the need to address these issues comprehensively as a part of NCD prevention and control strategy.