Associations and determinants of tobacco consumption in Thailand

Abstract

This paper presents a study of household tobacco consumption in Thailand from 2006 to 2011. We investigated the nonlinear relationships between this behavior and household alcohol expenditure, household gambling expenditure, and demographic factors and used TreeNet to analyze datasets drawn from socio-economic surveys. Across all the years included in the survey period, we found consistent results whereby the likelihood of tobacco consumption was higher for households with higher expenditure on alcohol both consumed at home and away from home, located in the South or the Northeast, with lower income, a head of household with a lower educational level, a male head of household, and a head of household employed by a private company. We also found that over the focal period of the study, households headed by an older person were more likely to consume tobacco in the first half of the study period but this relationship changed such that households headed by a younger person (aged 18–25 years), showed the highest likelihood of consuming tobacco by the end of the study period. The discussion behind this shift, and how it is related to strategies from the tobacco industry are also provided.