Tobacco Smoking Prevalence among in-School Adolescents Aged 13-15 years: Baseline for Evaluation of the Implementation of the FCTC in Lusaka district; Zambia

ABSTRACT

Background: Tobacco use is a major public health concern worldwide. Zambia has been controlling tobacco use in terms of legislative interventions; and acceding to the World Health organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The study was aimed to determine the baseline prevalence of current smoking to be used in the evaluation of the implementation of the WHO FCTC. Methods: Survey data from the 2002 and 2007 Global Youth Tobacco Surveys (GYTS) were used to estimate the prevalence of tobacco use. The standard protocol for GYTS was used in the surveys; and only data for students aged 13 to 15 years was used in the analysis. Data were analyzed using SUDAAN (Research Triangle institute); and SPSS (version 11.5) software packages. Weighted analysis was used to produce estimates together with their 95confidence intervals (CI). Results: The current cigarette smokers were 9.2in 2002 and 6.8in 2007 (p0.05); with an overall rate of 7.4(95CI [7.1; 7.7]). No significant difference in current cigarette smoking rates was observed between sexes. However; compared to students of age 15 years; those of ages 13 and 14 years were less likely to be current smokers (AOR=0.82; 95CI [0.77; 0.88]) for 13 years; and AOR=0.90; 95CI [0.85; 0.96] for 14 years). Conclusion: The results of this study show that Lusaka district is in the first stage of the tobacco epidemic. There is urgent need; guided by the WHO FCTC; for effective interventions to be put in place before the epidemic becomes unmanageable