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. 2022 Jul 26;22(1):1419.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13820-7.

Socioeconomic inequalities in tobacco cessation among Indians above 15 years of age from 2009 to 2017: evidence from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS)

Rufi Shaikh  1 , Nandita Saikia  2
Affiliations

Socioeconomic inequalities in tobacco cessation among Indians above 15 years of age from 2009 to 2017: evidence from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS)

Rufi Shaikh et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Tobacco is strongly associated with socioeconomic status (SES), however evidence on differences in tobacco cessation by socio-economic attributes remains fragmented, especially in developing countries. The present study aims to estimate socioeconomic inequalities in tobacco cessation among Indian men and women above 15 years of age.

Methods: Two rounds of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (2009-2010 and 2016-2017), India was used to estimate the association between socioeconomic indicators (wealth index and educational attainment) with tobacco cessation using a multinomial modeling approach.

Results: After adjusting for SES and demographic variables, we found significantly lower odds in tobacco cessation rates among respondents of GATS-2 (2016-2017) compared to GATS-1 (2009-2010). Additionally, huge regional variations in smoking and smokeless tobacco cessation rates were observed. Population belonging to the low wealth-asset score had higher odds of cessation compared to the high asset index. While greater educational attainment was seen to have a positive effect on cessation, the results were insignificant. Individuals belonging to the northeastern geographic region were seen to have the lowest odds of cessation. Though awareness about the health hazards of tobacco increased, cessation declined for both men and women. Quitting smokeless tobacco among men and women was observed to be lower than smoking.

Conclusion: This study is the first to provide national-level evidence on the association between tobacco cessation and socioeconomic attributes among Indians above 15 years of age. Findings suggest the need to scale up tobacco cessation services separately for men and women, and also for smoking and smokeless tobacco forms.

Keywords: Cessation; GATS; India; Quit; Socioeconomic; Tobacco.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Prevalence of tobacco consumption and cessation among Indian men and women above 15 years of age during 2009–2010 and 2016–2017
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
a Prevalence of tobacco consumption, cessation, awareness, and perception about hazards of tobacco use among Indian men above 15 years of age by wealth index during 2009–2010 and 2016–2017. b Prevalence of tobacco consumption, cessation, awareness, and perception about hazards of tobacco use among Indian men above 15 years of age by educational attainment during 2009–2010 and 2016–2017
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
a Prevalence of tobacco consumption, cessation, awareness, and perception about hazards of tobacco use among Indian women above 15 years of age by wealth index during 2009–2010 and 2016–2017. b Prevalence of tobacco consumption, cessation, awareness, and perception about hazards of tobacco use among Indian women above 15 years of age by educational attainment during 2009–2010 and 2016–2017
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References

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