Young smoking more

While the number of adult smokers in the Philippines fell during the four years from 2011 to 2015, the number of smokers aged 13 to 15 increased, according to a story in The Philippine Daily Inquirer citing figures from the 2015 Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) released on Friday by the Department of Health’s Epidemiology Bureau.

The GYTS is a school-based survey of students at private and public schools aged 13 to 15 years old.

The study found that 16.0 percent of the respondents used any type of tobacco product (smoked tobacco and smokeless tobacco) in 2015, up from 13.7 percent in 2011.

The study showed also that 12.0 percent of the 8,789 students participating in the 2015 survey said they were current cigarette smokers, up from 8.9 percent in 2011.

Cigarette use among ‘boys’ in 2015, at 17.6 percent, was up from 12.9 percent in 2011,while cigarette use among ‘girls’ in 2015, at 7.0 percent, was up from 5.3 percent in 2015.

The study, however, noted that the 2015 figures were lower than those recorded during the 2007 GYTS, when 17.5 percent of young people said they were current cigarette smokers.

In March, the Department of Health reported that tobacco use prevalence among Filipinos 15 years of age and older went down from 29.7 percent in 2009 to 23.8 percent in 2015.

This means that from 17 million in 2009, the number of Filipino smokers 15 years of age and older fell to 15.9 million in 2015, according to the 2015 Philippines’ Global Adult Tobacco Survey.