Bayesian Spatial Analysis of Socio-Demographic Factors Influencing Smoking, Use of Hard Drugs and Its Residual Geographic Variation among Teenagers of Reproductive Age in Nigeria

Abstract

The use of hard drugs (Alcohol, cocaine and Nicotine) has remained the censorious issue globally and in Nigeria. The use of hard drugs and tobacco smoking is common in the stage of adolescence and youth life, which is a deterrent to education and career advancement. Hence, this study looks into socio-demographic factors that influence the use of hard drugs and tobacco smoking among teenagers between the ages of 15 years to 19 years. To achieve this objective, a cross-sectional data was used and a secondary data was obtained from DHS - National Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS) from the survey year 2018. Some Bayesian models were developed and Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) model with random walk 1 (RW1) was the best model. The study unveiled a positive significant association of settlement, previous place of residence, education attainment, religion, ethnicity, literacy with reported use of hard drugs amongst teenagers of reproductive age.