Prevalence of tobacco use among young students in Yemen

الملخص EN

Background: It is estimated that there will be 10 million deaths each year from tobacco use by the year 2030.

Recent trends indicate that the smoking prevalence rate among adolescents is rising and the age of initiation is becoming younger.

If this pattern continues, tobacco use will result in deaths of 250 million children and young people living today, many of them in developing countries. Objective: to estimate the prevalence of tobacco use among adolescence in different regions of Yemen. Methods: A two-stage cluster sample design that produces representative samples of students in grades (7th , 8th, and 9th grade).

associated with ages 13-15 years from 25 school from each of Sana’a, Aden and Hadhramout governorates in Yemen participated in this survey.

There were 12658 out of 15022 sampled children. Results: The prevalence of ever smokers for the three region were 16.1%.It was higher in Sana’a than in Aden and Hadhramout 18.7%, 12.1% and 12.6% respectively.

Also the prevalence of current cigarette smokers and for use of other tobacco products is higher in Sana’a ( 17.3%) than Aden ( 14.3%), and Hadhramout regions (14.9%). The prevalence of never smokers likely to initiate smoking in the next 12 months was 40.6%, 30.3% and 29% in Sana’a, Aden and Hadhramout respectively. The proportion of student exposed to tobacco smoke at home and outside home is equal in Sanaa 49.3% but in Aden and Hadhramout the proportion of exposed outside the home (50.1%, 36.8%) is higher than exposure at home ( 43.% 27.9%) respectively Conclusion: The study concluded that the prevalence of tobacco use in Yemeni adolescents is high, and the proportion of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in and outside homes is also high.