Bangladeshi children smoking

Forty percent of school children in Bangladesh smoke their first cigarette before they are 10 years of age, according to a story in The Financial Express citing the results of a new study.

Three thousand one hundred and thirteen students at 52 schools were said to have participated in the study entitled, ‘Prevalence of tobacco use and its contributing factors among adolescents in Bangladesh: Results from a population-based study’.

The study was conducted in 2016 by Sheikh Mohammed Shariful Islam, AKM Mainuddin and Faiz Ahmed Bhuiyan of the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research and Kamrun Nahar Chowdhury of the National Center for Control of Rheumatic Fever and Heart Disease, Dhaka.

The study revealed that nine percent of students reported that they had ‘smoked cigarettes’, where smoking cigarettes was taken to include those who had ever taken one or two puffs.

Within the overall smoking incidence, smoking was more prevalent among boys (15.8 percent) than it was among girls (4.8 percent)

Two percent of the students questioned were said to be current cigarette smokers, while six percent used other tobacco products.

One percent of students reported that they felt like having a cigarette first thing in the morning.

About 70 percent of current student smokers reported that they wanted to stop smoking, while more than 85 percent had tried but failed to stop smoking during the past. Ninety percent said they had not received help to quit smoking.

According to the results of the study, almost 38 percent of current smokers buy cigarettes from retailers, and almost none of those reported being refused cigarettes because of their age.

About 10 percent of students were said to have been offered free cigarettes by a tobacco company representative and about five per cent of students usually smoke at home.

The researchers said that current tobacco control programs needed to be strengthened and expanded if tobacco-attributed morbidity and mortality was to be reduced.